Is It Ever Okay to Laugh About Alzheimer's?

CA-Claire

11 days ago

Mom had dementia of a sort, and right around Christmas 2011, she was sitting on the dreaded hospital bed, Mom and Dad's queen bed having had to go away for Mom to be in a hospital bed, Mom started looking at her feet and laughing. This went on for quite a while. The caregiver kept asking her what was so funny, but Mom just continued to laugh. Lasted about 20 minutes. A couple of days after that, she became mostly comatose, and passed away on 1/6/12. Wish I could have heard the laughing and recorded it. I miss her and her laugh most of all.

Becky Anders­on

11 days ago

You're so right! It helps to keep a sense of humor, and laugh about the situation at times. It does help relieve some of the stress of the day to day worry and sadness.

sometimes it is best to laugh to keep from crying. I think of the good times we have had when times are difficult.

sissa720

11 months ago

My family has always had a 'strange' sense of humor also. Just today my brother was trying to get my mom situated in the van and she started reading a car sticker- NOW WITH EASY STOW AND GO. BOTH MY BROTHER AND i WERE LAUGHING

The Caregive­r's Voice

12 months ago

In 2002 the first volume of caregivers' JOYFUL stories caring for loved ones was released. The title of the second volume says it all: Finding the JOY in Alzheimer's - When Tears are Dried with Laughter. We are collecting stories now for Finding the JOY in Caregiving at http://www.thecaregiversvoice.com/community/submit-joyful-caregiving-story/

sdprocter

over 2 years ago

I took care of my Dad who had been diagnosed with AD. And, although I was in front and center in my career, I knew it was payback time. Right before my dad moved in with me, a dear friend had been going through many troubled times with her husband who also had alzheimers. She shared with me a story that certainly made a huge difference in my abilities to care for my father. She and her husband lived in Northridge. When the huge earthquake hit Northride, their home was hit hard. It hit around 4:00 am. She and her husband awoke to watching their entire bedroom collapse around them as they sat straight in bed holding onto each other. After several moments of watching their precious mementos, lamps, clocks, clothes, chests, tables, chairs, and drawers, falling all around them, my friend looked at her husband. He had a very quizzical look on his face. She wasn't sure how she was going to explain this to him. She found she wouldn't need to. He looked at her after all the noise and commotion, and said, "Now look what you have done!" At that very moment, she knew it was time to laugh. She began laughing, and he began laughing too. She said it brought much comfort in the knowledge, that yes indeed, you must be able to laugh! She vowed, she would always find that time to enjoy laughter with her husband.

loveforu

over 2 years ago

i'm still laughing about hillary and maybe tomorrow

I don't remember!

Paula Spence­r Scott

over 2 years ago

Thank you all for sharing what feel like affirmations to me...Ginnysheen, I could almost picture being in your home, with all those wonderful details. And I also really like the idea of laura l's client's pesky friend "Mr. Alzheimer's"...!

Paula Spence­r Scott

over 2 years ago

Thank you all for sharing what feel like affirmations to me...Ginnysheen, I could almost picture being in your home, with all those wonderful details. And I also really like the idea of laura l's client's pesky friend "Mr. Alzheimer's"...!

rogerlunde

over 2 years ago

I try to get my wife to laugh every day. I don't always succeed but when I do I know she is not sad and disoriented. I worked with a person years ago who believed that if you could make someone laugh you could make someone think. Perhaps I can't make my wife think, but it pleases me when she is happy. Several months ago, my wife asked me, "Where is Roger?" (that's me) I said, "I'm Roger." She replied, "No you're not. He's much older than you." Intellectually I knew there was humor in that exchange. Emotionally, all I saw was the disease. I have told friends the story. They all laughed of course. And I now can laugh at it too. But it took repeatedly telling the story to overcome my emotion so I could see it intellectually.

joyg

over 2 years ago

Even off color humor can be funny. We were watching Animal Planet on TV and they were teaching a dog not to hump peoples legs. Before I could change channels, one man in the home said, "That is one horny dog!" Now you have to laugh at that! Another resident where my husband is living now is "working" on a new business idea called House of Joy, for men. She keeps recruting the dining staff. She is serious, but later out of her earing, we all get a kick out of it.

not myself

over 2 years ago

Just saw all my typos. Sorry! Promise not to repost, lmao!

beatbreastca­ncer

over 2 years ago

My mom has Alzheimer's, and sometimes the only way my brothers, sister and I can deal with it is to laugh about it. She lives on her own in an apartment with all of us taking turns on coming in twice a day, but it falls the hardest on my oldest brother. He takes care of all the doctor's appointments, gets the scripts, organizes them and makes a list with times and doses so the rest of us give her the right things at the right times, etc. The rest of us take over different aspects of her care, but he's her executor and his name is also on her checks. He's always been the most responsible one (he's the oldest of us six), and he's under such stress that he's been damaging his teeth, grinding them so hard some have cracked. Sometimes, I think the only relief he's got from watching Mom slowly disappear and be replaced with a sometimes mean, hurtful stranger is to talk with others of us on the phone and laugh (painfully, but laugh) about the things that happen. Laughter IS the best medicine; sometimes it's either laugh or cry, and if you cry all the time you can't see what you need to do! We NEED to laugh, not at the person, but at the situation, or we will go mad. Don't worry about what others outside think; do what keeps you sane. If your loved ones could be themselves again, they'd probably laugh about a lot of the stuff too. God bless us all.

not myself

over 2 years ago

This will probably be too long a post, but it's a subject dear to my heart--can't help it. My father is 90, sharp as a tack, but with cardiac problems, and mother 80 with AD, and not a physical problem to speak of--ironic, no? I have eight siblings, half nearby, and half 500 miles away, so lots of phone and email reporting makes laughing over the situation here routine. My family has always been close, regardless of the occasional and inevitable sibling rivalry, but the family sense of humor has always been outrageous, and others often find it appalling when we are howl over something--especially things others don't even discuss. Without laughing at the crazy things, Id be crazier than I am now! My mother, particularly on her better days, still cracks up with the rest of us, even when the joke invloves one of her "adventures". She loves to walk, and the first time she lost her way, she sat down on a corner and teased about her "hitchhiking" ever since, and she looks up at that, shrugs, and tells us that "he was a very nice man." And it was starting to rain!" One day she put the kettle on to boil for tea, and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't. "Um . . . probably because you put it on the knob instead of the burner?" She said, realizing her error, "I did it intentionally to see if it would boil from there. Guess not." Then she cracked up and said. "[Expletive deleted], at least now I can blame all this on the Alzheimer's." My parents both live with me, so this is constant. There's always something silly to laugh about. I ask "Do you remember being queen of the prom?" She says "Really? Was I?" I say "no--see? Your memory is not that bad at all!" She was always a lady as we were growing up, and quite offended when any of us swore or were "vulgar". No more. Now her favorite chore is to load the dishwasher. The five minute job takes her an hour or two, and she swears away the entire time.We laugh when we try to find something in the kitchen, and they are, well . . . just not there. My husband will tell her "treasure hunt time, Mom" and she laughs with him when they find serving bowls in her bedroom closet. She likes to put away her and my father's laundry, but only recognizes her underwear as her own. She doesn't recognize her clothing, brings it to me and says "this must be yours." I say thanks, and that I really like wearing things two sizes too large." We all howl at how often she thanks us for buying new clothes for her. When she has a second glass of wine as we cringe and pray that the rugs will give up the stains, we tell her she should be drinking white, not red! Every time I forget something myself in a standard semi-senior moment, she looks at me, laughs, and tells me that this is divine retribution, and her chance to get even. At a family gathering when sibs were visiting, she, who always said "urination" and "bowel movement" walked into the room and asked if someone would give her a hand because "I have just PISSED all over my pants." We all laughed and yelled "hell no!" She stared us down, and said "I raised you all; that's gratitude for you!" Of course she got the assistance, but it was one of those things where we all laughed together. I took her to change her clothes, and she got weepy. To console her, I said that it even happens to me, so she should just forget about. She said "well, no problem with that, is there?" Then she asked if it really happened to me, and I told her "hell, no! I was just trying to make you feel better." Then we sat there on the bed and laughed til we both cried--the good kind of crying. Sometimes it's funny, often it's not. My father is pushing sainthood for his good humor and patience, but even he will get really silly with her. He'll tell her he always assumed he'd go first, and now wishes he had, look up to the ceiling, roll his eyes, and holler "Take me now!" She fires back "No such luck." I get a good deal of relief from nearby sibs, and even the out-of-towners come often to stay for a few days and "run the show." When she asks why one of her kids hasn't called in weeks (and they really haven't) we just tell her she spoke with them the night before. Every meal is one she's never had before. What is this? The weekly meatloaf or spaghetti. "Fabulous--you should make this again sometime." We discuss the whole thing with her often (no choice--she won't remember the prior conversations), and have explained to her how AD affects the brain at least a thousand times. EVERY time, she says, straightfaced, "thank heavens it doesn't affect my mind." Then she looks over her shoulder and says "It's Alzheimer's you dope! I thought you knew about this kind of thing". And smirks. Her bad times can be very bad--almost intolerable--but knowing that ANYTHING can be funny when we need it to be. It makes a day so much better. My father loves to tell about her confusing her underwear and trying to pull a bra over her legs, at which time she asked in annoyance, doesn't anyone know how to make underear any more? My sweet, loving, helpful sister-in-law's mother, who also had AD, died recently--not funny at all. While we were in their home after the wake, my mother stage-whispered to me "She's better off--she had Alzheimer's, you know." It got very quiet for a moment, and then we ALL broke up. We have a sense of when things will be upsetting to her, and then we laugh among ourselves out of her earshot; pretty easy, as she's also hard of hearing. But . . . Ya gotta laugh! There will be lots of time to cry later, when she's gone and this is all retrospective. But twenty bucks says we'll be laughing again in minutes, and she wouldn't have wanted it to be any other way.

laura liddel­l

over 2 years ago

As co-leader of an Alzheimer's support group, I met a bright spirited woman who would report on the latest glitches caused by her pestiferous friend "Mr. Alzheimer" --I think this gave her some feeling of control over her situation.

Kristarr

over 2 years ago

Thank you for permission to laugh! I always make jokes in stressful situations, and with Mom's dementia, I am often thought disrespectful or morose. My Dad has the patience of a saint, God Bless him, and he and I share giggles and guffaws over some of Mom's behaviors, accusations and distorted memories. He has been accused of not loving her or making fun of her, but that is far from the truth. It is very hard to lose a loved one when they are standing right in front of you. Laughter helps to ease some of the pain of that loss. Thank you again for permission to laugh.