It was very painful to hear my grandmother call me mom. I was, at the height of my 10 years, divided between the laughter of the funny of the situation and the great sadness. It had always represented wisdom, duty, knowledge, elegance …
Stephanie, thirty years later, remembers that day when her grandmother didn’t recognize her at the bedside of a hospital room. A shock. She felt that she was losing her mind a bit, but no adult had explained to her why and how Alzheimer would inevitably upset his relationships with those around him, his grandchildren in particular.
My mother was struggling with hers. To protect me, she was just talking about the effects of aging. I didn’t care one of these fears! I thought to myself, so when you get older, is that what happens, unlocking completely from above?
Maintain the intergenerational link
How to tell the children about the degenerative disease, decipher its causes, the consequences to avoid the fear of visits, or even the break of the link? Caregivers and specialists keep repeating, the intergenerational link between patients and their loved ones has beneficial effects
, insists Élisabeth Rieu, psychologist, specializing in gerontology at the Pau hospital.
Every day, she accompanies caregivers and realizes how precious the presence of the youngest is with the sick. Children have this enormous advantage of spontaneity and common sense. They are not formatted, do not judge.
When you explain it to them simply, lo and behold, your grandparent’s brain is sick so it doesn’t work like ours anymore, that’s why it can do weird things. The child understands very well that the relationship is changing. It is when he feels in the convoluted explanations or the unspoken explanations of the adults in the gray areas that he will be worried.
The youngest are a real asset
In a study on communication between Alzheimer’s patients and their grandchildren, its author, speech therapist Émilie Daude, supports this benevolent authenticity: The youngest, from 5 to 10 years old, manage to maintain ties beyond social norms and codes. It is a real treasure that mitigates the marginalization of sick people in the family and society.
And if the cognitive weakens in the patient, the emotional brain remains very active. Never has my grandmother been so tender with me, Stéphanie is moved. As if illness had freed her from a certain modesty.
Understanding with Mamillette
The last moments of his sick grandmother, in his Ehpad in Ain, surrounded by his loved ones, this is the subject of documentary The memory that falters . 45 minutes where simply, without comments, Éric de Chazournes, one of Annie’s grandchildren, alias Mamillette, 96, lets life and illness show themselves unmistakable. With free access to YouTube, he moved Internet users and the members of the jury for the Deauville Green Award festival, who awarded him the Gold Trophy at the end of 2019.
And with Papi André
Staying natural and tolerant in the face of illness is also advocated by an online educational tool Alzheimer, not even afraid, published on alzjunior.org by the Alzheimer’s Victory Foundation. A comic book series in which Jade and Léo see their Papi André let everything burn on the fire, no longer knows what day he is living in, is agitated very quickly, makes whims … In a few bubbles, their parents explain the reason for the disease.
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