Coach Pat Summitt

We were all saddened at the news of  Coach Pat Summit’s death from early-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 64.  I found this article in the Washington Post  so moving that I wanted to share it with you. You should read it and encourage your students to read it as well.  Pat Summitt’s last great gift was sharing her fight with Alzheimer’s is more than just a tribute to Coach Summitt. It’s also a call-out on how we treat people with cognitive decline and how we need to improve our actions.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Pat was just one of four people I know with dementia, and from what I’ve seen, across the board, Alzheimer’s care is a national scandal in our midst, yet few are willing to address it, because it’s just too distressing.

When a friend or family member is diagnosed, this is what you quickly learn: Once-brilliant people who still have vast reserves of brain cells are discounted, forced into retirement, and many are warehoused in facilities where the food is patently awful and the most meaningful activity is bingo. And we wonder why they decline so swiftly. Their care is infantilizing and schedule-oriented, with full-grown adults fed at 6 and forced to bed at 8, and when they can’t communicate as they used to we lack the imagination to try to find other ways to reach them, so their pain or discomfort often goes unaddressed, leading to interactions that, as Stettinius says, “exhaust, frustrate, and deplete everyone involved.” Creative new forms of care that can enhance quality of life — art, poetry, music and animal therapies for Alzheimer’s patients — are the rare exception. Ignorance about the disease is the rule. We give lip service to preserving dignity but devote precious little thought to the fact that the quickest way to rob someone of that dignity is to tell them what time to go to bed.

Use this in class for a discussion on how to support an individual’s autonomy and how we can do better for people with Alzheimer’s.