Life Comes Full Circle

I recently read an article about a woman whose mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. The woman begins the story talking about how her mother read to her when she was a child and how those stories and poems connected them, and became a part of their life.

Now as her mother mentally deteriorates and normal conversation becomes impossible, the daughter reads to her mother, to maintain the connection. And so, as many things between parent and child change with time, the relationship between this mother and daughter has come full circle.

Why read to someone with Alzheimer’s Disease? Do they even understand and process the words? Could that possibly be beneficial? I remember a movie I saw where a man is reading to his infant daughter, but instead of children’s stories, he is reading the business section of the paper. When questioned by another adult about why he would read that to her, he replied that it wasn’t really what you were saying as much as it was about hearing your voice that matters. Infants don’t understand our words at first and probably not at all for a while, but that is not why we do it. We talk to them out of love, to make a connection with the sound of our voice. So too, when we talk to older adults who may be mentally disabled by age or disease, they may understand most, some or even none of what we are saying, but it is important nevertheless to communicate our care and concern, with words. Maybe, like a baby, they only understand the soothing tone and nothing more, but that is still valuable.

In the article I read, she said that her mother would smile when she read to her and though struggling with words, shared simple thoughts of gratitude. The moral of this story for me was that being limited in any way does not make you any less of a human being, and no matter what limitation, people need and deserve our love and concern.

A link to a blog with an excellent article on the value of reading to Alzheimer’s patients.
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/many-alzheimers-patients-find-comfort-in-books/