The Big Chill: Keeping Loved Ones Safe

Winter hasn’t officially begun and I’m already tired of the frigid weather. Single digits and thirty-mile-an-hour winds make me want to burrow in and not make an appearance until springtime.

I started out bundled up in my winter coat and wearing a hat on a mission to finish my Christmas shopping. After a few miserable trips from car to store, I purchased a heavy sweatshirt and put it on beneath my coat. I pulled the hood up and spent the rest of the day with hair that was crushed to my head in places while static lifted the rest of it in wisps high above my head. Not a good hair day!

Hair is not the biggest challenge on a cold, windy winter day. The danger lies in being exposed to the elements for any length of time—especially without protective clothing.

Winter is especially dangerous when a family member has Alzheimer’s. A person with Alzheimer’s may not remember to dress appropriately for the weather and a trip across the yard to check the mail could turn into a tragedy.

About 60% of those with Alzheimer’s wander. Wandering is especially dangerous in inclement weather when every minute counts. Snow can change the look of the terrain and familiar surroundings may become unrecognizable to someone with dementia. Slippery sidewalks and snow filled ditches become an obstacle course fraught with danger.

In the early stages, Jim walked our two big dogs every day. One day, a neighbor became concerned about Jim when she saw him trudging through a deep snow walking the dogs. He was wearing his winter coat, but had neglected to zip it up. She met him at the end of her drive and convinced him to turn around and head toward home.

After Jim began to wander, I tried different types of safeguards. I tried a device on the doorknobs that made them hard to open, but they didn’t slow Jim down when he decided to open the door. Eventually, I installed an alarm on the door so he couldn’t go outside undetected. I registered Jim with Safe Return which gave me some peace of mind.

When a person is lost, it is critical to find him within the first 24 hours to increase the chances of having a good outcome. In cold winter weather, like we have now, the safety zone is further reduced.

Cold weather is dangerous for everyone, but when reasoning is impaired it is important for family members to be vigilant. If your loved one must go outside, make sure he or she is dressed warmly and limit outdoor activities to short period of times. Do not let a person with dementia go outside alone in inclement weather especially if they have been known to get lost.

Winter officially begins next week so we have plenty of time to experience the big chill. Let’s keep our loved ones warm and safe throughout the cold days ahead.

Copyright © December 2010 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

Fall Back: An Extra Hour

Don’t you just wish they (whoever they are) would leave the time alone? Since I get up so early, I prefer standard time. Psychologically speaking the lighter the sky when I leave for work, the more awake I feel.

The best thing about the time change is the extra hour we have between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Have you ever thought about how much difference an hour can make? For some reason I can’t stop thinking about it. An hour can be the difference between life and death.

If I had not been in the exact place at the exact time I would not have met Jim on that summer Saturday in 1968. An hour would have changed my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren.

It’s easy to fritter away an hour here and an hour there. Most of the time an hour is insignificant but at other times it can come at a high price. When you miss a deadline by one measly hour, you can lose your job. If you don’t spend an hour studying for a test, you could fail a class. If a flight is delayed one hour, you can miss a connecting flight, which can cause you to miss an important meeting. An hour can be the difference between owning a home and seeing it reduced to smoldering ashes.

An hour can seem like an eternity if a loved one is missing, When Jim wandered off, minutes seemed like hours while we searched for him. The locale was different, but the heart-stopping fear was the same whether he was on our own road, lost in an airport, wandering around the mall, or lost in a crowd at Silver Dollar City. An hour can be the difference between a safe return and a tragic outcome.

Some surgeries only take an hour. I had an obstinate gallbladder removed in an hour. That hour meant living my life without painful attacks.

An hour can be for good or for evil. It can make a life changing difference or be of no consequence at all. When you think back over the last week, can you recall one single hour in detail? Can you think of an hour you would take back and erase if you could?

Those of us with fulltime jobs work 2080 hours per year. Our work day sometimes seems to be made up of slow moving hours. Of course we need to deduct vacation and holidays. When we are involved in a hobby or favorite activity, an hour speeds past on amazingly fleet feet.

Our lives are made up of hours. Those hours meld into weeks, months, years and become a lifetime. In the final hour, we learn the true meaninglessness of time.

We gain our hour tonight while most of us are in bed asleep. An extra hour can be the difference between being well rested or suffering sleep deprivation. It can be the difference between a dream and a nightmare.

But tonight, the time changes and we gain an hour. Have you thought about how to spend that precious extra hour? I don’t know what you plan to do with that bonus hour, but I plan to be sleeping. Soundly. Dreaming sweet dreams. Banking the hour for next spring when they (whoever they are) take it away and we lose an hour.