Everyday Problems When Living With Alzheimer's Disease

Everyday Problems When Living with Alzheimer's Disease Male: I know everybody’s heard of Alzheimer’s and dementia but most people have no idea what it’s like to experience the symptoms. Well, today with the help of these kits, I'm going to show you and myself first hand what it’s like to go through it. First, there was a pair of goggles that are going to really affect my vision. Second, these shoe inserts. They have really sharp bumps in there. These are going to affect how I'm able to move around. Also, some gloves with bumps on the inside. These are going to take away my tactile dexterity and make it really hard to perform some of the normal tasks. Then finally, these head phones are going to play some sounds into my ears that are designed to confuse me and make it very difficult to hear. Okay, here we go, time to suit up. Female: Get a plastic cup and fill it up half full with water and drink it. Clean the kitchen counter thoroughly with a wet paper towel or dish towel. Find a light colored button-up shirt. Put it on and button three buttons. Male: It was terribly confusing. These headphones while they were giving me instructions but yet there was also distracting noises, those strange noises made it so hard to concentrate on what those tasks were. So, on my first task, simple enough, get a glass of water and -- but, when I got here, I couldn’t tell how to turn it on. I don’t know if this was the faucet or this and it turns out -- but this was really hard to see, this black dot in the middle. This kind of simulates what’s it like to have macular degeneration. Your central vision goes and the only really left with a peripheral vision and that was blurred out anyway so I really had a hard time seeing. Now, I've noticed where I’m going and I’ve completely forgotten what am I supposed to do. I actually feel like I'm wandering. The next instruction was for me to clean the kitchen counter but I missed that one totally. I was being distracted and I thought it was something to do with finding a pen or something and so I totally missed that instruction. It told me to unbutton three buttons. Why would I be doing this? I have no idea but just remember somebody y telling me that. So, I was instructed to do something with some buttons. I don’t remember if it was I -- if I was supposed to unbutton the shirt or button it up but I found the shirt. I did something to do with the buttons and then I just got frustrated because I couldn’t remember what the instructions were so I ditched it down. I don’t feel like moving around. I just feel like staying right here because I feel safe because I don’t know really which room I'm in and I don’t think I’d still found the right button. Female: Find a book and turn to page 96 and mark that page. Male: The book task was probably the most frustrating I had to do. I can do it just fine there it is. It’s like let those gloves on but those gloves, forget about it. Female: Set a table for four. Male: Set the table -- so setting the table like I found it pretty good. Actually, it was kind of a dangerous with those gloves on because I didn’t have the dexterity and these things are really sharp. I was -- felt like my world existed only at about at arms length. I tell you know right now, I actually feel depressed. Just having gone through this and man, I hoped I never had to do this. I hope my loved ones never have to go through this because that was just not -- that wasn’t very pleasant.