Children's Literature Use is Therapeutic to Alzheimers Patients - Research Paper Example

Children's Literature use is Therapeutic to Alzheimer’s patients Introduction Children's literature is therapeutic to the patients suffering from Alzheimer diseases. The use and the practice of literature with children at an early age act as a way of treating patients suffering from Alzheimer disease. The children's literature helps individuals and families to identify, recognize, and interpret the symptoms associated with Alzheimer and later on they are able to take an appropriate action. Therefore, this paper discusses majorly about how the children's literature helps the patients suffering from the Alzheimer disease, the stages of the Alzheimer and the behaviour of the Alzheimer’s patients and the way the children’s books stimulate the mind of the patients. Alzheimer’s disease develops throughout the course of the life of a human being gradually and gets worse with time. The disease affects most of the essential parts of the brain of a human being. The parts affected mostly include parts responsible for thinking, memory, judgment, problem solving, decision-making, movement, personality, and language. Not all the patients experience the same or common symptoms, several patients experience different symptoms depending on the stage. Alzheimer’s disease comes about seven main stages and in each stage the behaviour of the patient changes according to the adversity of the effect. These stages of the Alzheimer’s help the family to plan although ugh the symptoms of development do not concur with the end symptoms. Eventually, literature of the children can help the Alzheimer’s patients since the literature of the children is quite engaging and thus puts the mind at work, which may help stimulate the brain of the patients (Kuhn 3). The stages of the Alzheimer’s disease include the no impairment or the normal function stage. At this stage, the patient or the individual is quite normal and does not experience any memory loss. When an individual in such stage encounters a doctor for an interview, he or she will display very normal character and behaviour hence it does not give any sign of dementia (Kuhn 27). In the second stage, the very mild cognitive goes down or the normal age-relate transforms or the initial symptoms of the Alzheimer’s disease. In this second stage, the individual experiences very little memory lapses, this is whereby an individual forgets very simple words and very simple things and events and an individual forgets the simple locations of objects. When this individual encounters the doctor or the therapist, no signs or symptoms of dementia exhibited during the interview (Kuhn 29). The third stage of Alzheimer’s is the mild cognitive decline. This is whereby some patients portray the symptoms of the early stage of Alzheimer’s. The environment, especially the family members and the friends or the people interacting with the patient generally begin having trouble with the patient. They notice the degree of forgetfulness is rising and coming to an interview with the doctor, the doctor is able to detect some problems with memory loss and concentration. The difficulties exhibited by the patient in this stage. These difficulties include, problems in pronunciations of names and words, the patient finds it difficult to remember the names of people when introduced, the /patient experiences trouble when organizing and planning, the patient forgets what they have just read , and they misplace objects so easily (Kuhn 77). The fourth stage is the moderate cognitive decline. This is the mid or the early stage of the Alzheimer’s disease. In this stage, the doctor has to undertake a very careful medical checkup in order to identify the following symptoms. They include, forgetfulness of the events that happened recently, the patient forgets about their own personal history. The patient becomes withdrawn or very moody when it comes to social or mental issues, the patient finds it very challenging to perform greater roles such as managing finances or managing people, and finally, the patient finds it difficult to perform challenging arithmetic (Kuhn 65). The fifth stage is the moderately severe cognitive decline. This is the moderate or the mid stage of the Alzheimer’s disease. Here, the gap widens, the memory elapses is quite noticeable and the patients suffering from this begin to require help in their daily duties. The patients have trouble in recalling their homes, addresses, telephone numbers, and the schools they learnt in and where they graduated from, they face experience difficulties in choosing the clothes they have to wear. They need help in solving arithmetic and in counting finances. On the other hand, they can still remember some bits of their personal history and about their family and they do not require any help in going to the toilet and eating (Kuhn 105) The second last stage is the severe cognitive. This is the moderately severe stage. Here, the memory loss still worsens with time. The personality of the patient changes completely and they require more support. The patient experiences more challenges at this stage. The patient does not remember the events that happened recently. The patient can only remember their names but cannot remember their personal history. They experience major challenges in their sleeping patterns and they are able to tell the difference between the familiar and the unfamiliar faces but they cannot tell the names of the spouses of the people. They have trouble in dressing and thus they require help. The patients also require help in handling the toilet equipments and they look confused and wonder or they lose their way. They experience behavioural changes and finally they experience trouble in holding and maintain their bladder hence the bladder becomes loose (Kuhn 165). The final or the last stage of Alzheimer’s is the very severe cognitive decline. This is the late or the severe stage of the Alzheimer’s disease. Here, the patient may not be able to control their movement, to carry on a conversation, and they have trouble in interacting with their environment. Although the patient can still utter some words and phrases. Therefore, the patients require great help and support from the individuals especially in the toilet activities or eating. The patients are likely to lose the ability to sit upright hence they require support in order to hold their heads up, smiling may be difficult, their reflexes turn out to be abnormal, and their muscles become very rigid (Kuhn 221). The Alzheimer’s patients need visual objects so that they may learn and stick in their memory. A repeat of the same visuals in their rooms will help them avoid confusing rooms and thus they will remember their own rooms. Therefore, children's literature will enable them to exercise their memory and thus able to commemorate the things they learn. It is advisable that children's literature should be used to teach the patients suffering from Alzheimer’s since the children's literature contains textured pages, bright and colourful illustrations, and pop-ups which may greatly help in aiding the learning process of the patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Besides, the children's literature is very detailed and simple which enables a patient suffering from Alzheimer has to understand easily since the literature is very simple. On the other hand, the staff approaches matter so much in the treatment of the patient suffering from the Alzheimer’s disease. The staff has to provide engaging activities for the patients so that they do not just stay idle. For instance, the staff has to encourage the patients to take more fluids during a practical meal. By so doing they encourage self-dependency among the patients (Landreth, and Bratton 121). The illustrations given in the children’s books of literature, especially in books written by Ms. Burdick, give realistic illustrations on water, based colours. This book interests the patients hence giving a good time to enjoy reading the books. Seeing the pictures also make the patients see the reality in the children's literature books thus they get so much interested in reading the books and this is the reason as to why the children's literature books should aid in the improvisation of the lives of the patients suffering from the Alzheimer’s disease (Landreth, and Bratton 135). The history of Alzheimer’s started long ago in the 1906 when Dr. Alzheimer's, a German physician discovered abnormalities in a number of cells of the brain. Following the death of one of his patients who died after several years of ailment from memory loss, memory loss has occurred in old age and it has been noted with great concern. After Alzheimer’s patient died during the brain autopsy, which he was trying to carry out, Alzheimer discovered that neuritic plaques surrounding the nerve cells (Prasher 44). He found neurofibrillary tangles twisted inside the nerves. This follows the name of the diseases as Alzheimer’s because he is the one who discovered the disease. Following the discovery of the Alzheimer’s diseases, many more discoveries have occurred towards the Alzheimer’s disease during the research. A link that existed between the declines of cognitive and tangles of the brain and the number of plaques, which the scientists discovered in the 1960s made the community of medicine to recognize officially as a disease and not just any other normal part of aging. Alzheimer’s disease became the major part of research in the 1970s when the scientists made efforts of understanding the whole body of the human being. These efforts of the scientists led to many mo0re major discoveries concerning the Alzheimer’s disease in the 1990s, and it also led to the understanding of the complexity o9f the nerve cells of the brain of the patients suffering from the Alzheimer’s disease. Following the concurrent researches done by the researchers, it led to the approval of drugs for treating the Alzheimer’s disease symptoms (Prasher 10). The scientists have taken a lot of time to devote themselves into the research concerning the Alzheimer’s disease in order to understand the environmental risk factors and genetic risk factors of the Alzheimer’s disease. Their main intention was also to understand the processes of the result into the formation of tangles and plaques in the brain and at the same time to discover the parts of the brain that get the risks to infections. The scientists have discovered both the genes of the early onset of Alzheimer’s and the late onset of the Alzheimer’s disease. However, the genetic factors alone cannot aid in the explanation of the causes of the Alzheimer’s disease thus the researchers are still exploring the lifestyles of human beings and the environment in order to come up with what they may be contributing to the causes of the Alzheimer’s disease (Prasher 114). The Food and the Drug Administration have approved more drugs for the treatment of the Alzheimer’s disease but still in spite all the drugs in use, none of them cures the Alzheimer’s disease. Instead, they all treat the symptoms of the disease and they slow down the process of mental decline. Currently, most of the Alzheimer’s patients find comfort in the books, the children's literature. Researchers have shown that the familiar kind of music can greatly engage the patients suffering from the Alzheimer’s disease more than any other thing can. It happens in the same way that all the other written books cause the same effects. Research follows that reading is the best remedy for improvisation of the life of the patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Even the patients who have difficulty in the verbal communication, they show some understanding of the meanings of the sentences written because they give sensible responses (Landreth, and Bratton 115). It happens that Alzheimer’s does not destroy the ability to read. Following the research made by a professor of hearing and speech science of Ohio State University, Michelle S. Bourgeois, all the individuals affected by the Alzheimer’s disease retained their literacy in case they were literate. The patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease can be able to read comfortably on their own during the first stages of the Alzheimer’s. Conclusion In conclusion, children's literature is very essential to the patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. This because the patients still know how to read and it appears that they enjoy reading more than anything else does. Research also shows that Alzheimer’s does not distort the literacy power of an individual. The individual is able to retain their literacy kills and thus allowing the patient to read the children’s literature simply improves their lives (Landreth, and Bratton 95). Work Cited Kuhn, Daniel. Alzheimer's Early Stages: First Steps for Families, Friends, and Caregivers. Alameda, CA: Hunter House Publishers, 2003. Print. Landreth, Garry L, and Sue Bratton. Child Parent Relationship Therapy (cprt): A 10-Session Filial Therapy Model. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2006. Print. Prasher, Vee P. Down Syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease: Biological Correlates. Oxford: Radcliffe, 2006. Print. Read More