Senior center gives caregivers a break

By CAITLIN SULLIVAN/Staff

John Sebo drives his wife, Rose Ann, to the Abingdon Senior Center every Wednesday at 10 a.m.
It’s the only three hours during the week he doesn’t have to worry. He doesn’t have to cook or clean for her or manager her blood sugar. The time gives him a chance to do something for himself. Sometimes he plays bridge. Or he swims at the recreation center in Abingdon. Other times he heads homes and washes the laundry.
Three years ago, Rose Ann, now 75, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia. The brain disease kills nerve cells, generally over the course of eight to 10 years.
Tracey Kendall of the northeastern Tennessee and Southwest Virginia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association said the disease starts with short-term memory loss and moves on to where patients don’t recognize family members. It progresses to individuals having problems completing their daily activities and then to the final stage of immobility and unable to so things like swallowing.
“The body doesn’t work with the brain,” she said.
Rose Ann said it began when she started forgetting where she put things. Her doctor noticed she was slowing down.
John said he knew something was wrong when she started getting nervous and upset during their customary bridge games with friends.
“She couldn’t stand the noise,” he said. “When she got Alzheimer’s, we don’t have the things in common we used to with each other.”
For 12 years, John ran a bridge club in Abingdon. He and his wife used to travel to play the card game. Not anymore. Now he plays twice a month while she’s in adult day care at the Senior Center.
The adult day care group is free and includes lunch and activities like manicures, mask making, knitting and making bird feeders, stepping stones and stained glass. Right now, the Abingdon Senior Center pays for the activities. Leaders there would like to expand, offering other things, such as sculpture, but first they need to find a sponsor.
“The dream would be $1,500 for the year but even $500 would help us buy things and cover the cost of the food,” said Patricia Dean, program and activities director. “My dream is to make this a hub when you’re looking for help with Alzheimer’s.”
John said if he hadn’t had the support of the Senior Center he would have probably had to hire someone to help at home by now.
“It’s been a lifesaver,” John said. “This place has really helped tremendously.”
“This place gives him the chance to get away from me,” Rose Ann said.
“And you from me,” he said.
When John first brought Rose Ann to the Senior Center she would stand by the door, waiting for him to come back. Now she’s right at home.
“We pair up the ones that need extra help with volunteers,” Dean said. “Those that can do it on their own, we give them the respect and they do it.”
The only requirement is that they be able to feed themselves and take themselves to the bathroom.
“The world gets smaller because they’re not welcome everywhere,” Dean said. “This is a group that welcomes them even though they have Alzheimer’s. We take steps to make it so that they still have a life.”
That part is important to patients, Rose Ann said.
“You have to make these people feel wanted,” she said. “People don’t understand until you got kicked in the gut with it.”
Kendall said the disease is 26 percent hereditary “so our lifestyle and choices do play into it a great deal.”
She said preventative measures to Alzheimer’s include keeping mentally active through learning new information like reading or cooking new recipes.
Sissy Frye, respite program coordinator for District Three Government Cooperative, holds support groups in the area for caregivers. She advises people to switch up their routes to work or to make a grocery list in the order you’d get the things in the store.
Diet – primarily eating dark greens and dark-skinned fruits and vegetables – and exercising 30 minutes a day, five to six days a week, is also very important.
“What’s good for your heart is good for your brain,” Kendall said.
Lastly, she said, social stimulation is vital to the health of the brain.
“We have to remain connected to people,” Kendall said. “Elders who feel they have a purpose and remain socially connected can actually reduce the risk of dementia.”
“I keep her active as much as possible,” John said.
John and Rose Ann attend the Tuesday mornings free breakfast at the Senior Center.
“I come to the breakfast for the socializing and it sure is a wonderful thing,” he said.
John also attends caregiver support groups.
“If you’re not careful, it can be the worst experience in the world,” Kendall said. “It is a 24/7 job and it can be very discouraging and heartbreaking.”
Kendall said 60 percent of the time the caregiver will pass away before the patient because of stress and neglecting their own physical, medical and physiological needs. And a high number of caregivers end up taking antidepressants.
She said the caregiver is often worse off than the person with Alzheimer’s because the patient is often in their own world and it’s the caregiver left outside of the world taking care of them.
“They need support, outlets and know they can’t do it by themselves,” Kendall said.
Frye said, “It makes it hard on (the caregiver) especially when they’re in the home 24/7, it just becomes overwhelming.”
A head injury or fall at an early age can increase a propensity to Alzheimer’s, Frye said.
John says he thinks a car accident in 1975, which left Rose Ann unconscious for 10 days, may have affected her brain.
“It took her a while to get her memory back after that,” he said.
“It’s happening to younger people,” Kendall said. “In our area, the youngest person I’ve worked with is 40 years old. Over 640,000 people in the U.S. are affected by young onset of Alzheimer’s.”
On their days together John and Rose Ann visit friends in the nursing home or he has volunteer meetings and she is content sitting and knitting. They go to Kroger’s and Rose Ann stays in the car with the doors locked.
“She stays put,” John says. “We’re able to do things because she doesn’t wander off.”
Rose Ann knits but now he says she sometimes only knits half a mitten and then takes it out.
“I knit three mittens because when you’ve raised children, they always lose one,” she said.
Rose Ann and her husband grew up in West Virginia and married 58 years ago. Their routines don’t change much. In the morning, he fixes coffee before she awakes. She takes her medicine and eats a bite. In the evenings, John makes dinner. Meatloaf is her favorite. Then the two watch “Judge Judy” and the news, followed by a basketball game. He works crossword puzzles while she knits or plays solitaire.
Kendall said that in the early stages of the disease, patients might realize there is a problem but hide it or deny it. She said that can go on for a year or two before loved ones begin to catch on.
“Forgetting where you put the car keys is normal, forgetting what to do with the keys or where the car is is a problem,” Kendall said.
She said the disease takes away the essence of the person.
“They look, move, talk the same so it’s hard to remember there’s something wrong with them,” she said.
Kendall said people with Alzheimer’s are often aware they have it and often get embarrassed. Their caregivers do too sometimes. John says it happens. At restaurants, sometimes his wife will say somethings rude or out of place to other diners. He pulls a worn card from his wallet, reading “Please Pardon My Wife Has Alzheimer’s Disease.” The wallet also holds newspaper clippings of upcoming Alzheimer’s events.
“You live together 58 years you don’t just give up on things like that,” John said. “If this happened to me she’d do the same.”

Upcoming event
The Mid South Alzheimer’s Association will be holding its monthly caregiver support group meeting 3 p.m. on Wednesday, March 24 at Broadmore Assisted Living in Bristol, 826 Meadowview Road. The second of Teepa Snow’s four part series on care giving entitled ‘Accepting The Challenge’ will be shown. Items within this module include “Physical Approach” and “Communication Skills”.
Caregiver support groups
Abingdon Senior Center, Abingdon, the First Wednesday of every month at 10 a.m.
Pleasant View United Methodist Church, Abingdon, the Third Monday of every month at 6 p.m.
District Three, Marion, the Fourth Thursday of every month at 6 p.m.
For more information call Sissy Frye at District Three Government Cooperative in Marion at (800) 541-0933.
Tracey Kendall at the Alzheimer’s Association in Johnson City, Tenn. at (423) 928-4080 or (888) 800-8782.

For more information contact the Abingdon Senior Center at (276) 628-3911.