Alzheimer's - Finding the Words: A Communication Guide for Those Who Care

This is a wonderful, common-sense book for those dealing with a loved one with Alzheimer's. We found it so helpful and insightful that we ordered additional copies.

Without this book my wife and I would not have survived my Mother in law last few years.

"Finding the words" to communicate with someone who has Alzheimer's is a problem-- especially after many words have lost their meanings to that person. Harriet Hodgson, the daughter of an Alzheimer's patient, has done an excellent job in giving us a guidebook for communicating in the daily struggle all caregivers go through, as she gives us many antidotes from her personal experience with her mother. In this book, we learn about communication at all stages of the disease, the causes of communication problems, and how to "run interference" or "identifying and dealing with the obstacles before they deal with us." We can't fix things; we can't make everything right for the person with Alzheimer's, but we can try to achieve better communication, realizing, as the author says in her epilogue: "It isn't easy for caregivers to find the words they want. Some days we succeed; other days we fall short of our goal. The important thing is that we're trying to improve communication. And that we keep on trying because we care."