My cousin's father is turning eighty this year. He had been frail the past year. A few months after the last hospitalization, he regained his health. Lately my cousin found that he was beginning to be forgetful. What do we do when we are faced with an aged person's declining short term memory?
I can think of three possible reasons: 1. growing old - the inevitable decline 2. Senile dementia 3. Alzeimer's disease Of the three, an early diagnosis and quick intervention of no. 3 could buy some time and limit the ravages of the disease by whatever current medical science could do.
But in this case we all know the root cause: the poor old man was left at home alone all working days with no one to talk to. His wife chose to run over to her son's to care for the only grand daughter from Monday to Friday. Perhaps the family has to address this issue and move either the apple of the grandparents' eyes to the old man or being equally creative, move the old man to be with his wife on weekdays.
To implement either solutions, problems would crop up. Would the parents be willing to commute daily? Is spending more on petrol an impossible thing? Or would it be unacceptable to leave the old couple's house untenanted on week nights? What are our priorities? If everyone agrees that it is important to keep grandpa's mind alert and sharp for as long as possible, then changes are inevitable.
Incidentally, this old man's biological elder sister's short term memory has deteriorated to the extent that within the period of eating lunch (about half an hour), she asked who brought the ten pieces of fried chicken four times.
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