Neuro Note #3

For this Neuro note, I decided to watch a Ted talk called "How my Dad's Dementia Changed my Idea of Death (and Life)" by Beth Malone. She started out the video by explaining that she wanted to kill her dad. I was very confused by this, and of course this is a great attention grabber for the start of a video. Naturally, I was hooked and began to listen. I started to understand that this had to do with the fact that her father had been sick for awhile. He had frontotemporal dementia or (FTD) and had been sick for about a decade. Within the past few years, it had progressed and they had to move him out of his own house that Beth had once grew up in. This type of dementia can make people very aggressive and even paranoid. It can change personalities altogether for some people. This began to happen with Beth's father and they started to notice this while he was living in the nursing home they had moved him into. They received a call from the nursing home explaining that they had arrested him. At the nursing home, he had been threatening people with cutlery, pulling curtains off the walls, throwing plants outside of windows, and even yanking the women out of their wheelchairs. Eventually, they found a center for him that was specifically for people with dementia. This was better for him, but overtime his health continued to decline. One day Beth walked in his room and saw him hunched over wearing a onesie type of outfit. She said it looked like he was trying to figure out a way to get out of it, because if I had to guess he was probably uncomfortable. As Beth continued to explain this story in her Ted talk she began to get emotional, and tears filled her eyes as she spoke. This Ted talk was very hard to watch personally for me just because you could see the pain in her face as she began to talk about these stories of her father. You could almost feel the emotions she was having as she was speaking. I thought she did a very good job to continue on with her Ted talk through her emotions. She explained as though she felt her dad was being tortured at this point having to live the way he does. She began to talk about death and how she wished her family would have had more conversations about death when her dad was still healthy. She ends the video by explaining that the best way to help her dad is to just resume their roles as father and daughter. Even though she wanted to help him so badly, she realized she isn't a doctor and that maybe the best thing to do is to just continue being a daughter and to just be there for him regardless. Beth and her father had a great moment in his room at the nursing home where she felt like his spirit was finally reconnected again with his body. This video was very emotional and I really enjoyed this Ted talk. We just never know how our parents will age, and what may happen with their health as they get older. Dementia is very difficult to deal with, but I think it's the small moments like the moment Beth explained at the end of her video that remind you their life is still important. I chose this Ted talk because I have had a few family members deal with dementia in the past, and I always want to learn more about dementia. I learned from this video that it will be hard to watch a family member completely change, and not remember who they are anymore. Beth had to remind herself that sometimes life will be difficult, but if you can't change the situation you may as well continue to push on and be there for them no matter what. Resume your role as daughter, wife, husband, etc. and do the best you can to be there for that family member even if they aren't who they once were. 

References

Malone, B. (2017, June). How my dad's dementia changed my idea of death (and life). Retrieved August 02, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/beth_malone_how_my_dad_s_dementia_changed_my_idea_of_death_and_life