Henry and Lucille Vickerson
I was living in San Jose, California when my parents visited from Arizona to help take care of me while I was recovering from surgery. My dad was driving me to a medical appointment when he drove right through a stop sign. I said “Dad, you just drove through stop sign!” He looked at me with a dazed expression – he didn’t even know what “stop sign” meant. During the same visit, he needed to use a power drill. My dad, a retired IBM engineer, looked at me and said, “I don’t remember how to use this.”
He was diagnosed with dementia in 1992 and three years later received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I would ask him what it felt like to have Alzheimer’s. He told me that in the days he went to work as an engineer he could just look at something and see its schematic in his head – but with the onset of Alzheimer’s he couldn’t see those things any more. He said that he generally felt pretty good in the morning, then as the day went on he would start to feel what he described as a fog rolling in. It would get hazy, then he’d get sleepy and then he wouldn’t remember anything. I remember those days when I could see him glazing over. He would nod when I asked him if the fog was rolling in again. Continue reading “On a personal note… (Pam Vickerson)” »
Dementia is not a specific disease. It’s a broad term that describes a wide range of symptoms, including memory loss or thinking problems that are severe enough to interfere with daily life. Many conditions can cause dementia symptoms, including some that are reversible, such as thyroid problems and vitamin deficiencies. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. Alzheimer’s is progressive, which means the symptoms will worsen over time. There is no cure for Alzheimer’s and it’s the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S.
