Personal To Me: Alzheimer’s Disease
My Grandma was diagnosed with Alhzemiers around about 2 years ago, yet it was clear that things weren’t well with her for a few years prior to this. It started slowly, where we would play cards and she would get the game wrong, which for my Grandma who has a perfect and very shrewd mind, this was unheard of. It was soon clear that things weren’t well and she deteriorated very quickly. Now she struggles to string a sentence together, and doesn’t remember anything about her past.
As a child and into my teens, my Grandma and Grandad where always telling me stories about their past. I have a very small family and so to them this was important and also to me that I knew what sort of life they had lived. We would sit for hours and so would they when it was jus them 2 on their own talking about the laughs and situations they had been in.
Now, it is my Grandad who looks after my Grandma and I know and see that he is struggling. He tries hard to remind her and share their memories with her, yet she doesn’t seem to remember or add anything to them, this I know breaks his heart.
It may not be long now before my Grandma wakes up and doesn’t remember who her husband is or who I am and my Mum. I want to do something personal to me for my piece on memory, so my initial idea is based on my Grandma and the memories I have of her now and how they have changed.
This is a short video which explain the effects of the disease through a song. As our obstruction for this artefact is to do something we have never done before, Audio is something I think I am going to go ahead with.
