ALZHEIMERS
Changing My Game To Help My Sister With Alzheimer’s
Adjusting expectations and communication accordingly
My career in business began with a truism that can be used in every facet of our lives.
Meet your customers where they are.
It wasn’t too hard in business. I would interview people, look at the data, work with a team to revise our plan, rinse, and repeat. Needs change all the time, and those who are best at their job know how to measure and adjust.
I remembered this dictum recently when it was clear that my sister had progressed to the next stage of Alzheimer’s. How would I meet her where she is, I wondered. This has been my first time witnessing the disease with someone I love, and it has been heartbreaking.
How did I know my sister had taken a turn for the worse? In March, I published a young adult book, which I dedicated to her. I wrote in a clean, simple voice both because that made sense given the narrator and mostly because it was my best chance at giving my sister a book that she could read and process.
She not only read the book but would call me to discuss a chapter she had just finished. She wanted to discuss whether she was taking the right messages from it and, more…
