An Alzheimer's Side Effect I Never Expected

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

07 Jun 2008 12:28 PM

I talk about Alzheimer's disease a lot here in the Health Blog because it is slowly stealing my grandmother from us.

When I'm faced with a problem, my first urge is research. I try to learn what I can (and when it is health related, share it here). So I've read a lot about Alzheimer's disease -- the different stages, the history, the treatments, and even some famous people who are dealing with it.

But all my research didn't warn us about this: as my grandmother has progressed through the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, she's packed on a lot of weight. Over the past five years or so, she's gone from a size eight to a size fourteen.

Why? Because she doesn't remember that she's eaten. She's always supervised at breakfast and dinner times (especially because those are medication times) but she's on her own for lunch sometimes. More than once, she's finished lunch and a half hour later, made herself a sandwich because she didn't remember eating.

The family leaves notes all over the house (much like Courtney and her big message board at home) to help my grandmother remember what day it is, if anything special is planned, and whether or not she's eaten. But I've also seen her take one of these "today" notes and throw it out, thinking it's out of date.

This is one problem we're not sure how to handle.

• Take all the food out of the house? That, I think, would only lead to stress. She'd be very upset to find no food in the cupboards or fridge.
• Have someone watching her constantly? That's a possibility, but an expensive one. Aside from the over-eating, she's usually okay for a few hours by herself during the day.
• Leave more notes around? The walls would be covered in them pretty soon.
• Maybe more exercise would help? She does take walks with the home health aide at least three times per week, but aside from that, my grandmother is pretty sedentary. She doesn't use her treadmill much anymore. Then again, she's 82 years old!

Any ideas? For now, we're just buying bigger (or elastic-waist) pants.

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