My 50th high school reunion is in a couple weeks. Hard to believe. 50 years gone…<Snapping my fingers>… just like that.

I hope I’ve grown a little, improved a little. I hope I’ve become a little kinder and a little more considerate. Maybe, even more responsible.

The upcoming reunion triggered some high school memories. Some that I’m not exactly proud of. Let’s just say that at times, I could be a smart ass.

I remember one morning of my senior year. I arrived at physics class a little early. Mr. Augsburger had set up some light experiments, bending light or some such nonsense. Mr. A was a good teacher. He would pull Jeff Wilson and me out of study hall to help out with basketball concessions or just hang out. And we would talk shit. If you knew Jeff Wilson, you would understand completely.

As I entered the classroom that morning, Mr. A said, “Neese, don’t touch anything!”

And of course, me being a smart ass, I responded, “Why, you didn’t pay for any of it!”

We all have our hot buttons. Mine are litter, pretentiousness, parochialism, blah, blah, blah. Well, Mr. A’s hot button must have been something like, “Don’t misuse or damage public property, property that belongs to all of us!”

Maybe, when he sent me to the office for suspension, he was saying:
“Yeah, I did pay for it, and I want to take care of it and it really, really annoys me that young people don’t appreciate and respect public property, property that belongs to all of us.

Then maybe, he would continue.
“I’m tired of people shrugging off responsibility for taking care of school property, city parks, and yes, even things like the rivers and streams in our country and even the air. I’m tired of people saying it’s not my job to take care of things and places that belong to everyone.

So, maybe he didn’t suspend me for all of that and maybe what he really thought was that I needed some consequences for my smartassery. I’d like to think it was the former not the latter. 

I’d like to think it was about stewardship.

Season 10 Finale

I’ve spent the past 20+ episodes writing about the aging brain. I’ve called this Season: “It’s all About the Engine.” This refers to the engine that ensures you can walk, talk, tie your shoes, and all the other things you do; you know, your brain. If the engine quits working, or is damaged, or if you simply do not take care of it, then you’re likely to have a problem. You can be like that ‘56 Chevy (the year I was born) that was pampered, driven hard, well maintained, looks great, runs great, and rides great, or like the one rusting in the junk yard from years of neglect. Stewardship starts with your brain.

Season Recap

This season I’ve written about: 

Diet for a healthy brain
Your brain on nature
Your brain on hobbies
Your brain on exercise
Your brain on the mind
Green exercise
How to improve your cognitive fitness
How to be a Super Ager

On the Shortness of Life

The Art of Exuberant Living

A Fairy Tale: The Magic Necklace

I’ve shared the lives of some healthy agers
Betty White
William Shatner
My friend, Don Andrews

I’ve also shared lives of people who have suffered with Alzheimer’s Dementia
B. Smith.
Glen Campbell
Faye and her Daughter, Carolyn

Sandeep Jauhar and his Father

When I titled this episode, “Your Brain Has a Mind of Its Own,” here’s what I meant:

You have a brain. I want you to see your brain as something you have to care for, something to be a good steward of!  Again, you have a brain. You are your mind. You (your mind) need to take care of your brain.

Your brain cannot take care of itself.

Your brain cannot get out and walk in the morning

Your brain cannot stay away from processed food and choose to eat real food.

Your brain cannot take a hike.

Your brain cannot stop using alcohol.

Your brain cannot get a good night’s sleep.

Your brain cannot decide to take up a new hobby, learn a new language, or start writing.

You have to do all of that. You have to take care of your body. What’s good for the heart is good for the brain. You have to take care of your body, your heart, and your brain.

Next month, my son and I are doing a Rim to River to Rim hike in the Grand Canyon in one day. That’s 20 miles, 5000 feet of elevation up and 5000 feet of elevation down. It should take us about 11 hours.

Yesterday my training hike was an 11-mile hike in the Jefferson Memorial Forest, with a 20-pound pack. I did an average of 20 minute miles (plus breaks) and that totaled 3 1/2 hours with an average heart rate of 129 bpm.

Next weekend I’m going to do a 13 1/2 mile hike in the Jefferson Memorial Forest doing the Siltstone Trail, which will have a significant increase in the elevation due to all the hills on that trail.

Why do I do these things?

I do them because I want to take care of my brain. Who else is going to?

This episode has been about stewardship. It’s about taking care of something that belongs to you and not to others. Unfortunately, many haven’t taken the message seriously. Many will neglect the one thing that makes you, you.

One More Way to be a Good Steward of Your Brain

This past week, I read an article in the New York Times, entitled, “The Foods that Fight Inflammation,” by Jill Pretzel. You can look at this diet and substitute any disorder, disease, or chronic illness into her title.

“The Foods that Fight…., cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disease, etc.”

Here’s the diet that they suggest: 

First, vegetables, especially leafy greens. 

Second, fruits, especially berries.

Third, legumes, which mostly includes beans.

Fourth, turmeric, and other spices.

Fifth, fermented food, which would include things like sauerkraut and kimchi, although you’ve got to watch those as well because some of them just contain brine water.

Sixth, Omega-3 fatty acid, hemp, Chia seed, avocados, etc.

Seventh, Coffee and tea.

They don’t mention protein, except for salmon, but most of us do not get enough protein.

This diet looks like the diets I’ve written about for the healthy aging brain. It looks like the MIND Diet. It looks like the Mediterranean Diet. It looks like the Whole Food Diet. It looks like the Wahl’s Protocol Diet (for autoimmune disorders). It looks like every healthy diet that I’ve written about and every healthy diet that I’ve read.

50 Years Later, Hopefully a Good Steward

I’ve grown a lot these 50 years and would never say, “Why, you didn’t pay for it,” despite still being a smart ass. I’ve learned the importance of good stewardship of public space and public places and public property and…… Yes, my brain.

Season 11 Tease

I hope you’ve enjoyed this season on the aging brain. I have some random episodes that I’ll share over the next few months. Then in January or February 2025, I’ll launch Season 11. I’m calling it: Aging with an Attitude. I’ll include several Folktales that will form a collection that I’ve entitled Finding Wisdom in Fairytales. Also, I have several episodes on Stoicism and Aging. Then I’ll share some memoirs from those who are Aging with an Attitude (Willie Nelson, Kathleen Turner, Billy Crystal, and maybe a few more). Of course I’ll share an interview from a healthy ager.

That’s coming soon.

See you then.

TO READ MORE ENTRIES IN THE HEALTHY AGING SERIES, CLICK HERE.

You are your parents! Well, not exactly, but your parents will determine who you are and what you do for almost your whole life. Mostly.

How do you feel about yourself? Thank your parents.
How do you save or spend money? Thank your parents.
What kind of car do you drive? Thank your parents. (And how you drive that car.)
How about your attitude about pets, politics, Public Schools, or your love of reading, and music? Thank your parents.

Mostly.

Roots and Wings

We called those things roots. That’s the first of two parenting tasks that need to be accomplished when raising your children. The other is wings. You know, pushing older adolescence out of the nest. Forcing them to become independent, self-sufficient, self-determined. 

Both are equally important. Think about the process of developing roots and wings and how it binds you to your parents. It’s impossible to overstate the connection you have with your parents, not to mention the genetic connections. Skin color, height, weight, left-handedness, your dislike of peas and carrots, or cilantro.

The connection that you have with your parents is physical, spiritual, religious, social, and affects everything including your likes and dislikes, even if you are estranged from them. It’s impossible to disentangle.

The Ties that No Longer Bind

Now imagine watching that connection slowly fade into nothing. Imagine the parent who made you who you are, imagine them regressing into someone who has no idea who you are, and for that matter, they have no idea who they are. Regressing is too kind of a word to describe what happens to someone when they develop Alzheimer’s Dementia.

Watching the parent who helped you developed these deep roots and helped you launch into this scary world, watching them, over the course of eight to sometimes 10 years, unbecoming your parent. It’s disheartening and devastating.

I have chosen two books to share and close out my discussion on Alzheimer’s Dementia. Caregivers have written both of these books.

The first is “Walking with Fay,” by Carolyn Birrell. The second is “A Dignified Life: The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care,” by Virginia, Bell and David Troxel.

“Walking with Fay” is the eight-year journey that Fay’s caregiver, Carolyn her daughter, takes with her mother who has Alzheimer’s.

It is a story where Carolyn is forced to become the parent of her parent. It is like parenting in reverse. Slowly Fay becomes that newborn-blank slate. That’s what happens with people with Alzheimer’s. They become a helpless, needy, completely dependent human, minus the hope that you experienced when you held that bundle of joy in your arms in the delivery room.

For Fay and Carolyn, the walk was a 7-to-8-year journey through the slough of despair. Like a slow-motion accident being played on a loop. There was nothing Carolyn could do. No veering away or pumping the brakes. If you read “Walking With Fay,” you’ll notice that Carolyn did all the right things.  She read lots of books about Alzheimer’s Dementia and books for caregivers. She attended an Alzheimer’s Support Group. She had personal friends, and she developed relationships with people who helped share her burden. Eventually, she let go and placed Fay in a memory care facility.

I’ll share a few of her emotional experiences through the process of letting go. Read each word.

“Things seem to be moving faster. Her changes are more perceptible. It becomes increasingly easy for me to leave her after each visit. Her sense of time is distorted now, and I’ve found that I can simply reach over for a quick squeak or a kiss on the head and say, “OK mom I’m going now, and I’ll be back tomorrow!”. Gone are the days when I’d begin preparing my exit strategy well in  advance of my departure and  agonizing over that sort of interrogation I received this time. I no longer had to sweat through some story about somewhere I needed to be or the prospect that I had to get things done.”

“I functioned on the level based on my interpretation of what a good daughter should do, not what a loving one would. My visits were born from: I need to ensure my mother was safe. If I missed a day, the anxiety I suffered was nearly unbearable. But I really experience a feeling of longing for my mother‘s actual company and was very aware of its absence. The emotional punishment I handed down to myself for that was relentless.”

“Dementia is dementia, as far as my mother is concerned. I understand there are different nuances among the types, but it doesn’t matter much to me which kind she has. Whether her behaviors resemble someone with Alzheimer’s, Lewy Body disease, Frontal Lobe, or Vascular Dementia, I don’t feel the need to know anymore, and I don’t need to distress her any further to find out. She’s confused, she’s often unsettled, and she’s very suspicious. That’s enough for me to know more than anything for me to manage.”

“My mother was a shell. She was locked away in a confined area of what felt like an insane asylum, and I was the one who put her there. Again, it didn’t matter that I arranged safe shelter for her with more intensive care when she needed it, all I could see were my mistakes, and this one was just another decision.”

“I usually cried a little on the way home. It’s no longer about my hurt feelings over something she said to me, since she no longer speaks, but more over her decline. It is so pronounced now that it’s impossible for me to leave our visits any way, but incredibly sad.”

Walking with Fay was painful and exhausting, like a walk through a desert valley. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to hurt when you watch someone, not someone, your parent, dissolve, or rather become the opposite of what they were. They go from being your someone, to something else. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. I would strongly advocate for compassionate care and kindness for those going through Alzheimer’s, but there’s little of them left at the end. And many caregivers anticipate a peaceful end.

That was the walk with Fay. Fay had changed. Carolyn had changed. And I had changed, too.

Maybe there was a little synchronicity in my choice of other selection that I read for caregivers. “A Dignified Life,” written by Virginia Bell and David Troxel, from Lexington, Kentucky, provides a wonderful alternative to the parenting model when caring for someone with Alzheimer’s dementia. It addresses the painful process of becoming a parent to your parent with dementia. “Consider being a friend,” they suggest.

Parenting an Adult Child with TBI

As a sidenote, I’ve spent much of my professional life working with persons with brain injuries. In those cases, where adult children experience a brain injury, often they lose their guardianship, forcing their parents to  become their guardians. Parents find themselves in a very conflicted relationship with someone that was living on their own, a source of pride and joy.
Imagine having a 27-year-old son or daughter, injured in an automobile accident and now you help manage their life. You are forced to take a parenting role over them. In many situations,  these relationships become very conflicted. The brain injured 27-year-old does not want to be treated like a child. It’s a tough situation. How to provide supervision without sounding like a supervisor. The real issue is how to support your injured adult son or daughter without sounding like a parent.

Parenting Your Parent Like a Friend

I think that’s what “A Dignified Life,” is getting at. And so, they’ve chosen a different model. Stop acting and sounding like a parent to your parent. Instead, this program asks you to rethink  your relationship with a person you care for and become that person’s best friend.

“Adopting a best friend approach,” they write, “can help diminish the pain and loss you feel about your situation. It can restore a sense of fun, support, good communications, and help you overcome the bad days, and teach you ways to encourage activity. Dementia has changed the relationship you have always had with your family member or friend Memories are lost and routines disrupted, but a best friend approach helps you build a new kind of relationship. They can also be healing. “Mom is now my friend,” one care partner told us. “She doesn’t exactly remember who I am, but we are having more fun than ever as best girlfriends.”

Bell and Troxell’s manual goes into a lot of detail. I encourage you to read the book. Here are the bullet points of the Best Friends Model.

Friends know each other’s personality and history.
Friends do things together.
Friends communicate.
Friends build self-esteem
Friends laugh together
Friends are equals.
Friends work at the relationship.

This is only a thumbnail sketch of this program and they’ve written a lot and provide trainings on how to do the best friend approach, but I think it’s an approach that is worth pursuing.

The Kind and Just Parent

Years ago, I read an excellent book by William Ayres, entitled “A Kind, and Just Parent.“
Ayres was an educator. His book is about two men who worked with children and teenagers convicted of serious crimes, who had been incarcerated in a detention center called Audy House, in Chicago, Illinois.

Here is the lesson learned from supervising teens: Take the power out of the relationship.
I think that’s what The Best Friends Approach attempts to do. It seems to me that the biggest challenge that you will face overseeing your parents with Alzheimer’s is the power struggles, and caregiver burnout. 

Maybe the Best Friends Approach helps with both of these dilemmas. I guess the lesson gleaned from these two books is, if you end up parenting your parent with Alzheimer’s, try not to act and sound like a parent.

This is my last dementia memoir. I’ve shared many and they can take their toll on your psyche, witnessing all of the trauma. But for me they were necessary.

I have two more episodes left for this season. The next is about Super Agers, and then the finale.

Take care.

TO READ MORE ENTRIES IN THE HEALTHY AGING SERIES, CLICK HERE.

I Got Lucky

I almost burned down a church once. Okay, okay, relax. It was an accident. I was the pastor of a little Baptist church in Arch, New Mexico. That was forty years ago.

One of my duties as the young pastor was to baptize new converts. The baptistry was behind the pulpit area and needed to be filled and heated with, basically, a heating element from a hot water heater. I filled it and heated it. No problem. But later, when I drained it, I failed to turn off the heater and it, well, it melted onto the fiberglass baptistry. Even I knew that it could have caused a fire. I got lucky.

I replaced the heating element, patched the fiberglass and held my breath. No one noticed. I got lucky. This is the first time I’ve shared this story. 

I’ve told the story already about winning $12K playing 3-Card Poker, but that’s the extent of my luckiness with gambling.  I’ve played the Powerball many times. No luck. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’d do with all that money. I’ve seen it ruin lives.

My Father’s Brain

I’ve been writing about the aging brain this season, which is entitled, “It’s All About The Engine.” More recently, I’ve been writing about Alzheimer’s Dementia. I want to share some unlucky numbers that I gleaned from two books. One of the books is a dementia memoir written by a caregiver and it’s entitled, “My Father’s Brain,” by Sandeep Jauhar. The other book is entitled, “Ahead of Dementia,” by Luciana Mitzkun, which is a step-by-step guide for family caregivers.

Alzheimer’s Unlucky Lottery Numbers

First, let’s look at the unlucky numbers: 6, 1, 10, 65, 15, and 2050

Here’s what they stand for: Currently, there are 6 million individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in our country. That’s 1 in 10 over 65 years old have Alzheimer’s, and there will be 15,000,000 by 2050.

Part of the reason for the increase over the next 25 years is because people are living longer. There have been some minor advances in treatment, but the problem with Alzheimer’s is, once you develop the symptoms, they are irreversible.

Let’s look at the books.

“My Father’s Brain” is the heartbreaking story of Sandeep Jauhar’s journey through his father’s Alzheimer’s and more accurately the journey he and his siblings experienced. This is the disease that stole their father.

I’ve organized this episode into three major points: conflict, communication, and confusion.

Conflict

It was painful, watching the conflict between Sandeep and his siblings. Like all families, they loved their father and were grieving their loss as he slowly slipped away, but they all had different ideas of what his care should look like. They argued often. They argued with each other about telling fibs or white lies. I’ll talk about that under the communication section below. Things devolved.

That night we met for dinner at his house. My father was in my mother’s old recliner in the living room quietly watching TV, while the rest of the family, including my sister, who flown in from Minneapolis, was seated at the dining table. Midway through the dinner, he finally spoke. “Where is your mother?” he said. He hadn’t mentioned her in months. My brother quickly got up. “Mom isn’t here,” he said. “Where is she? my father demanded. I put down my utensils and went over to him. “Dad,” I said quietly kneeling beside him. “Mom died three years ago.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “She flew with me to this place one month ago,” he cried. “Call the airline. Ask them. There was a passenger. What happened to her?”

They argued about if and when to place their father in a nursing home. They argued about how to handle palliative care, whether to provide an IV saline solution when he was refusing to eat or drink. They decided, with a help of a hospice nurse to withhold it, and he died a few days later.
Maybe it’s supposed to be difficult to decide these things. Sometimes the choice is obvious and sometimes it’s not.

Communication DARE (Don’t Argue, Reason, or Explain)

I’ll bring in the Mitzkun’s manual at this point because it provides one alternate way of telling the truth. DARE is a humane and caring strategy for communicating with a loved one with Alzheimer’s dementia. DARE stands for: Don’t Argue, Reason, or Explain.
Mitzkun and others have suggested something like therapeutic fibbing. But DARE is a little different. It’s about information. “Since dementia,” she writes, “causes problems with language, dementia patients have difficulty finding simple words, formulating sentences, and comprehending what they hear. Too much information can cause them to become anxious, agitated, or act out their problematic behaviors.” Here are her suggestions:

Don’t Argue
“People with advanced dementia,” she writes, “simultaneously experienced cognitive decline in their reasoning skills and heightened emotional responses. Memory and perception become skewed, and facts, dates, cause, consequence, and logic become increasingly less important. To avoid confrontations, the caregiver must learn to suspend the need to be right and use strategy and finesse to handle difficult situations, refocusing and redirecting a conversation.”

Don’t Reason
“When you try to reason with a dementia patient the caregiver sets the stage for failure,” she explains. “Dementia patients are unable to follow reason. Not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t.” “As a general rule,” she writes, “caregivers must avoid the word ‘because.’ Every time ‘because’ is used it inevitably will result in an unsuccessful attempt to connect cause and effect.”

Don’t Explain
“When a caregiver explains something to a loved one with dementia, she is using a train of thought that the patient simply cannot follow. Explaining often involves multiple steps that lead to a conclusion or a goal. As dementia progresses, the ability to follow sequence is diminished; the more steps involved the more difficult it becomes to understand an explanation.”

And so she suggests using fibbing. “Fibs,” she explains, “are concocted scenarios that can be used to help the patient overcome confusion and agree to accept help. They are most helpful in dealing with resistance to care, especially in the moderate to late stages of dementia.”

Maybe I should’ve made this communication my first point because in some ways, it is probably the most significant.

Confusion

People with Alzheimer’s dementia become confused about many things. They become confused about people, places, and things. They become confused about where they are and where they are going. Hence, they need to stop driving and they begin following a caregiver, displaying what some call shadow behaviors. This confusion leads to more conflict.

Maybe that is the ultimate insult of Alzheimer’s dementia.  Endless loops of confusion. Complete and total disorientation. Complete and total disorientation about people, places and things. Sandeep and his two siblings were tormented by their father’s confusion. 

Watching the devastating confusion that is brought on by Alzheimer’s Dementia, must feel a little bit like one of those devastation reels that show a wall of snow encompassing a skier in the distance. It is truly a feeling of absolute helplessness that you feel while watching them die.

Conflict. Communication. Confusion.

Such is the plight of people with Alzheimer’s Dementia and the burden of their loving family members.

I have tried to share the lives of people with Alzheimer’s and share the lives of their families. Both experience this devastating disease. I have one more dementia memoir that I’ll be sharing and then, an episode about your brain on nature.

Stay tuned.

TO READ MORE ENTRIES IN THE HEALTHY AGING SERIES, CLICK HERE.

There is a manual for almost everything. Like, the “dummies” guides. You know, “Adulting for Dummies,” “Communication Skills for Dummies,” and “Parenting for Dummies.” That was one I could have used 30 years ago.

I loved being a father. I wasn’t perfect. Not even close. I used to give a book to parents called, “The Good Enough Parent.” I think I was good enough. I was there when my two sons were born. I loved bathing them, and yes, changing poopy diapers.

When I became a therapist, my sons were nine and six years old. I read a lot about parenting. Did all that book-learning help me as a parent? I think so. As an example, I learned about Grandma’s Rule. You know, “Eat your broccoli and then you get your ice cream.” I learned about penalty sentences, timeouts, consistency, parental alliances, parental control, picking your battles, and using the carrot not the stick. A Parenting manual would have helped. Everything in one book.

Alzheimer’s Dementia

I have titled season 10, “It’s all About the Engine.” It’s all about taking care of your engine, you know, your brain.  But sometimes your brain gets broken and there’s nothing you can do about it. I shudder as I think about Alzheimer’s Dementia.
I’ve been sharing some stories of people with Alzheimer’s Dementia. I’ve written about the coming storm for many of us. Now, I want to share a caregiver’s story and a manual for caregivers. I wouldn’t wish dementia, in any of its forms, on anyone. And my heart breaks for the husbands, wives, and adult children who are losing their loved ones to dementia. All I can offer you is their stories and maybe a few manuals for caregiving.

I’ve paired a couple books together, one entitled, “My Two Elaine’s,” by Martin, Schreiber, and “Dementia for Caregivers.” by Renee Phillippi. As the titles imply, this is more a story about caring for people with Alzheimer’s.

I read the story that Schreiber wrote about his wife, Elaine. Marty Schreiber was the thirty-ninth governor of Wisconsin. He and Elaine met in high school and raised four children. Side by side, they crafted a wonderful life together until in 2005, when Elaine was diagnosed with Alzheimer/s Dementia. He writes,

“My first Elaine and I shared love, hope, happiness, and dreams. As she became my Second Elaine, the dreams turned into nightmares, because I was losing her. Happiness became hopelessness. Grieving and health issues (including depression and anxiety) replaced joy.”

There is a progression of hopelessness throughout his book and here are the words and phrases that jumped out at me.

Maintaining a sense of humor.
Fragile, my constant helpmate became dependent on me.
Dreams turned into nightmares.
The most fearful time may be when they know they are losing their mind.
She was having trouble remembering.
Your partner will become someone you don’t know.
No one survives.
Your spouse is going to get worse, mentally and physically.
Chronic stress experienced by caregiver may shorten their lives.
She had lost all interest in reading, making photo albums, sleep, baking…
I was too exhausted to go…
The blame game is always underway.
The risk comes in blaming herself.
Trapped and hopeless.
I felt cheated.
We learn on our own again.
Alzheimer’s makes most people uncomfortable.
Alzheimer’s continues to squeeze the memory out of Elaine.
When you are not prepared, brace yourself for moments of frustration.
One of the most painful losses for couples affected by Alzheimer’s is not being able to really talk about the kids or grandkids.
I have received the phone call from my bewildered wife, lost while driving.
I can be considered a survivor of Alzheimer’s because it is a disease with two patients.
I began to seriously wonder how much longer I can live with my wife.
Her illness is causing her to have more than one person can handle.
She lacks awareness of all she has lost. Her independence, her memories, her future.

She is not upset by the fact that she lives in a care facility and wears an adult diaper.

Elaine Schreiber died at 82 in a memory care assisted living center. Martin and Elaine lived with Alzheimer’s for 17 years.

I hope you can feel the pain that Martin and Elaine felt throughout those 17 years.

Dementia for Caregivers, by Renee Phillippi

This is a manual that I would wish, for any family members struggling with a loved one experiencing Alzheimer’s, to have read. I do not want any of you or your loved ones to experience Alzheimer’s. 

And listen to me for a second, nobody is going to look for a manual that provides instructions on giving care to a loved one with dementia when in all likelihood neither you nor your partner or parent is going to develop Alzheimer’s Dementia. 

Just in case, you know, the worst case scenario, here’s an excellent guide or manual for caring for your loved one. Most of what you will experience is challenging behaviors. As a Behavior Analyst, I know a little bit about this. I’ve written hundreds of behavior plans to support individuals with developmental or intellectual disabilities. 

Prevention is always the best approach when working with challenging behaviors and caring for individuals with Alzheimer’s. Phillippi has provided a prevention plan, of sorts, in chapter 6. It’s good. I’ll share the main points.

First, before trying to understand your loved ones behavior you should focus on establishing a relationship of mutual trust and respect.

Second, realize that your loved one is not purposely trying to upset you. Most of the behavior reflect ways that their confused brain is trying to explain external phenomenon they struggle to understand.

Third, sometimes behaviors are caused by specific objects or people that can trigger the behaviors from your loved one. This is what I mean by antecedent interventions. Remove all the objects from their sight that remind them of an upsetting or discomforting event.

Fourth, best way to redirect someone’s intention is to engage them in activities that make them feel helpful. Keep your loved one engaged in meaningful activities.

Fifth, take care of yourself. Don’t ever forget that you’re the solid rock of the team and you must look after yourself more than ever. Phillippi gives numerous examples of ways of taking care of yourself.

Six, mentally (or actually) record what happens. Life is a constant learning experience. We don’t need to continue having the same problems. We can learn and change the environment and change the behavior. Develop a plan. Follow the plan.

Seventh ask for help when needed. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and look after your own mental health.

There is lots more in Phillippi’s book and I highly recommend it.

There are transitional moments in our lives when we make choices like marriage, having children, investing, and retirement. And there are lots and lots of books and manuals for those periods in our lives. 

I’m sure many of you have read books on those topics. 

None of us will choose Dementia. And believe it or not, in some cases vascular dementia is preventable. That’s not the case with Alzheimer’s, Lewy body Dementia, and Frontal Temporal Dementia. 

If, God forbid, you or a loved one gets diagnosed with one of these diseases, here are a couple of good books that will illumine the dark road ahead of you. 

TO READ MORE ENTRIES IN THE HEALTHY AGING SERIES, CLICK HERE.

I have read “Lonesome Dove,” by Larry McMurtry, at least five times. In the opening scene, Gus McCray saunters out to the well house to fetch his jug of Tennessee Whiskey. It’s been a long hot day in south Texas. The sun is setting, and he sits on the porch, takes a couple of long gulps from his jug, getting, as he described it, a little misty. That was his daily ritual.

I love that scene. I love the character that McMurtry created. He’s an aging man, enjoying his life and his daily drink in the evening. I confess that I like that evening, misty feeling that I get from a dinner cocktail, pint of beer, or a glass of wine. 

Things changed about five or six years ago when I started wearing a Fitbit that tracks my sleep. I started noticing that my heart rate did not drop as much or as quickly when I had even one drink, regardless of the time of day. It really didn’t go up; it just took a good part of the night to drop down to the low 50s. Eating sugar before retiring also delayed my heart rate from dropping. 

I’m going to spend some time later in this season on the topic of “Your Brain on Sleep,” so save your sleep-questions for later. Of course, the real question is this: Is this effect on my heart rate a problem? I read an article by a cardiologist (New York Times), and they suggested that it wasn’t a problem, but it kind of makes you wonder, as Squirrely Dan from Letterkenny suggested.

Alcohol is Poison

And then there was the Huberman Lab Podcast that I was listening to a couple of years ago where Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neurologist, called alcohol a poison. Yes, he said, if you drink chronically, you will experience neurodegeneration or loss of white and gray matter. Therefore, you should not drink alcohol at all. Alcohol is evil. There is no option other than complete abstinence. Amen.

Here’s a confounding question: Regardless of what you do, or don’t do, eat, or don’t eat, drink or don’t drink, you will lose white and gray matter as you age. The answer is yes. Dr. Huberman isn’t the only medical or mental health professional advising absence, and there are lots of studies,  studies highlighting the deleterious effect of drinking alcohol, especially as we age. 

But there are voices out there that advocate mild to moderate drinking, suggesting that it lowers the risk of everything from stroke to Alzheimer’s Dementia, and that drinking wine is associated with a longer life. Consider the Mediterranean Diet that is touted by many, many, many health professionals that allows for two glasses of red wine daily. And there are several longitudinal studies that suggest drinking alcohol, within reason, is good for you. I’ve read all of the studies or at least most of them. Here are my takeaways:

First, heavy, chronic drinking, is detrimental to your health and mental health. The National Institute of Health advises that if you drink daily, you can have one or two drinks daily. That’s 14 drinks per week.  If you drink less than daily, you can have three drinks, with the caveat that you consume those drinks on a one-drink-per-hour-basis. Still, the 14 drinks per weeks is still in effect.

I don’t want to get lost in the details here, I just want to find common ground! Chronic, heavy drinking is not good for you. Can we all agree on that?

Second, if you are a light to moderate drinker, diet, exercise, and sleep, will have a greater impact on your life than whether or not you drink and by that I mean light to moderate drinking. This also applies to your brain health. Exercising your brain will affect your brain health more positively than the negative effects of alcohol. There are three variables to consider when drinking. 

One, heavy drinkers are more likely to be smokers, which will likely increase mortality. 

Two, wine drinkers are more likely to be more educated, more health conscious, and less obese, which means less diabetes, which means a decrease in risk of early mortality. I suspect that those that have been lifetime abstainers or former drinkers are more health conscious, which again skews the data toward decrease risk of mortality. Dr. Peter Attia was interviewed about his book on healthy aging, “Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity,” and was asked if there was one thing that he would want people to take away from his book, what would it be? His answer: exercise.

Third, there are social benefits to light and moderate drinking. Alcohol isn’t just a social lubricant, but it is also a social adhesive for many aging people. Social isolation can contribute to a decrease in quality of life and maybe sharing a glass of wine with family and friends can serve as a buffer to that isolation.

My Break Up With Alcohol

I made the decision to break up with alcohol on February 27, 2024, six months ago. I based that decision, not on the health issues, whether it was poison or not, or on longevity. Well, maybe my health issues played a small role. So, why did I stop drinking?

First, a book that had a big impact on my use of alcohol was, “This Naked Mind,” by Annie Grace. Her book got me to think about my drinking and, in those very honest moments, I decided that I didn’t enjoy drinking. I enjoyed the taste and those initial moments following my first drink, but I did not, did not, enjoy the physical effects that followed 20 or 30 minutes following that first drink. Honestly, I felt like crap. So, I decided to stop drinking.

Second, I realized that I couldn’t do the things that I enjoyed doing if I had a drink in the evening. I couldn’t focus on reading and writing. I just wanted to go to bed. Reading and writing are important to me, so I decided to stop drinking.

Third, prior to my decision to stop drinking, I attempted to manage my use of alcohol. Ask anyone who knows me. All I ever talked about was managing my alcohol use. I would have a plan, and then the plan would go amuck. I would tell myself that I would only drink 3 or 4 times a week, and then drink every day. 

Part of my frustration was my inability to control something in my life, and that something was alcohol. 

So, I decided to stop drinking. Believe it or not, it has been easier to not drink then it was to manage or control my alcohol use.

Intentional drinking

Considering what I’ve just shared, how should you drink? Is alcohol poison?

When we label alcohol as a poison, we make no progress in helping people drink responsibly and intentionally.

If you’re going to drink intentionally…

First, make the decision to drink within the guidelines of the National Institute of Health:  (Men) 2 drinks if you drink daily, 3 drinks if less than daily. (Women)  1 drink daily, 2 drinks if less than daily. (For men and women) 1 drink per hour. 

Second, if you’re going to drink, exercise 150 minutes a week, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, get 7-8 hours of sleep, and socialize with family and friends.

Third, do I need to mention, if you’re going to drink, don’t smoke cigarettes.

I’m writing this while flying to Denver to visit family. I am wearing my Air Buds with noise reduction. I love them. I hear only the music from my iPhone, mostly. If you’re going to drink intentionally, you need to use  some form of noise reduction and silence the voices that are out there pontificating on the evils of alcohol, or the miraculous benefits of alcohol, and simply live, and enjoy life, and be a little bit like my hero, Gus McCray, who had a healthy routine of getting a little misty as the sun set on Lonesome Dove.

TO READ MORE ENTRIES IN THE HEALTHY AGING SERIES, CLICK HERE.