Living with Alzheimer’s or Other Kinds of Dementia with BJ Miller
Our podcast is hosted on Spotify and Anchor.
BJ Miller, Mettle Health founder, palliative care and hospice physician and author, leads an informal and interactive conversation on Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia.
Whether you’re a patient or a caregiver, dementia takes everything from a person, and tends to do so very slowly. The effects are not just physical, but psychological and emotional and spiritual and just about every way you can think of. Losing function is one thing, but losing yourself is something importantly different. Due to the fact that dementia plays out over many years, everyone involved needs to adapt again and again.
Show Notes:
0:00 Introduction
2:57 Defining the different types of dementia
5:50 Trajectory of dementia - early vs. later on in the disease
8:05 Considerations for caregivers of people with dementia
11:27 Risks for caregivers and dementia
13:36 Advance directive considerations for people with dementia
15:04 Projecting tragedy onto someone living with dementia
17:00 Living and staying in the moment for both patient and caregiver
18:04 The difficulties of losing a relationship due to dementia
20:00 Changes in personality due to dementia
21:15 Is there a connection between Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's in older adults?
23:00 Adding preferences to advance directives for dementia
25:00 How to determine if someone’s memory loss is just aging or if it’s early dementia?
28:05 Insights into Alzheimer’s progression in adults above 80 years old
30:05 Considerations for feeding tubes, eating and dementia
33:20 Getting out of the way of death for someone with dementia
34:40 Considerations for PCA or Benson’s Disease: a specific type of dementia
37:55 Is it wrong to stop treating something?
40:10 Thoughts on the FDA approval of Alzheimer’s drugs?
45:00 Remaining in the moment with someone who is living with dementia, moving with reality instead of trying to fix
51:00 Additional thoughts on the latest FDA approval for Alzheimer’s drug
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