neuro note 4

For my fourth neuro note, I chose to watch a TED talk on a woman whose father has frontotemporal lobe dementia. The woman in the videos name is Beth Malone and her father has had dementia for over a decade now. The video centers around how she copes with her father’s illness and her process of learning to heal. She considered bringing her father to Oregon to buy heroin and kill him. Although this sounds inhumane, her intentions were to put him out of his pain and not to murder him. Her family helped her realize that was not the best way to go about helping her father. They put him in many nursing homes until he was arrested for pulling women out of their wheelchairs. After that incident, he was kicked out of the nursing home and was moved into another facility. Eventually Beth went to go see a psychic to figure out what she needed to do to cope with the disease that was killing her father. The psychic told her that she needs to resume their roles as father and daughter. This advice really helped her learn to cope and made her more at peace with the situation.

Dementia is a very common disease among the geriatric population. Currently, my great-grandmother has dementia and I know first-hand the pain of seeing a loved one slowly losing their memory. However, optimism is very important in these types of situations. In the video, Beth expresses her struggles before she finally became at peace with what was happening to her father.  As an OT, I will have many encounters with client’s with dementia. My role will these clients will be to assist with their ADL’s and IADL’s. While I will not be able to aid in their memory loss, I will be able to assist in their independence. When working with a client that has dementia, I will also be working closely with their loved ones. I know how important it will be to be empathetic to not only the client but their family as well. I enjoyed this TED talk video because it showed a woman’s raw emotions surrounding her father’s disease. She was not trying to hide anything back and she wanted to be an aid for anyone going through the same or something like her situation.  I would recommend anyone interested in learning more about dementia watch this video!

Malone, B. (2017, June). Retrieved August 19, 2019, from https://www.ted.com/talks/beth_malone_how_my_dad_s_dementia_changed_my_idea_of_death_and_life#t-415812