COVER STORY : Embracing Alzheimer’s Patients With Compassion
When Denise Parker strides into the North Coast Alzheimer’s Center, everybody looks, laughs and listens.
Even the most mentally scrambled individual seems to perk up at the sight or sound of this 30-year-old activities aide.
“Marie! Where’s my hug today?” Denise cries, opening her arms to a 75-year-old woman suffering from Pick’s disease, a brain disorder similar to Alzheimer’s. Marie, who remembers faces but has all but forgotten how to speak, basks inside Denise’s embrace.
Denise turns to Arnie, a former stock broker whose age-related depression has diminished his ability to function in society, but not his ability to flirt. “Arnie, baby!” Denise teases. “Get on over here this minute and give me a hug!!”
This round of adulation and spunk goes on until Denise has greeted each of the participants in a one-on-one manner.
“Sometimes the families can’t give them that hug before they bring them here, that kiss, so I do it for them,” Denise explained. Home care givers get stressed out coping 24-hours a day with mentally impaired loved ones. “They suffer a lot of burnout. That’s why I’m here.”
“Denise is sensational,” said Wally Burton, 82, a retired Highway Patrol Officer who brings his wife, Marie, to the center five days a week and often sticks around to observe. “Everyone relates to Denise,” Burton added, as he watched from the sidelines. “She really has a gift.”
Whatever it is Denise has, it can’t be taught, according to Judy Canterbury, Executive Director of Western Institute Foundation for Mental Health. Caterbury is the founder of Oceanside Adult Day Health and the North Coast Alzheimer’s Center, which is newly affiliated with the Sam and Rose Stein Adult Day Center in Encinitas.
“You can teach people how to feed dementia patients, how to teach them crafts,” Canterbury said, “but you can’t teach them how to respect and care for them as individuals.”
Denise was hired at the center six months ago. For three months before that, she volunteered at the Oceanside center as part of a county workfare program. Such volunteer efforts are the trade-off for county assistance. Denise now earns $6.25 an hour.
“I’ve wanted to work in this field ever since I was a child,” said Denise, a single parent whose daughter Patricia Jean, 7, was born with autism.
Dealing with Patricia’s severe speech and learning disability equipped Denise in a way no schooling could with the sensitivity, tact and self-esteem it takes to cope successfully with the disabled, she said.
Denise said her mother has been her biggest role model. “My mom’s always taken care of elderly people in their homes,” she said. “I’ve always admired her for that. That’s why it’s so easy for me to give all that love and affection, because she taught me to do that.”
Among Denise’s more popular innovations is “Beauty Day” for the women participants. She totes a beauty box brimming with make-up, manicure articles, curling irons and styling gels for her make-overs. “All women love to feel good and look pretty,” she said.
Many times participants are deeply ashamed to have to be escorted to the bathroom or have their diapers attended to, Denise said. “I try to help them get past that shame.”
At night Denise goes home to a child who speaks little and requires much the same intense attention that Denise devotes to her day care charges.
Sometimes Patricia Jean goes along to the center with her mom. She holds the participants’ hands, serves them lunch, and one day presented a bubble-blowing demonstration as she waltzed about the porch.
“The participants loved it,” Denise said with pride.
