Reaction to a recent article in the New York Times:
“Stepping In for a Parent With Alzheimer’s”
“Your Money” section
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
Published: November 5, 2010
“Stepping In for a Parent When Alzheimer’s Sets In” offers some good guidelines to protect older adults who face diminished capabilities. I take issue, however, with the “role reversal” suggestion, which implies that the parent is now a child. In fact, an adult with increased needs remains an adult who deserves that ongoing recognition, even as a decline continues. The decline in dementia is variable and can not always predicted, unlike the predictable milestones of childhood. The view of the older adult as child can lead to an overreach in interventions and create more restrictions than warranted. The challenge is to provide the right amount of assistance while maintaining respect for the history and life accomplishments, which remain within the person who, once independent, can no longer do it alone.
Signe Gleeson
President of ElderCare Solutions
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