Many of the health care costs families incur with Alzheimer’s are out-of-pocket, considered custodial care and not eligible for health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid coverage. Some families are forced to spend down all their assets to qualify for care under Medicaid’s Title 19.  Complicating matters, the average Alzheimer’s case lasts eight years. Former President Ronald Reagan, for instance, may have suffered for a dozen years or more.  For families and caregivers, finding relief from the caring for Alzheimer’s patients, the time for personal needs or sleeping without interruption or worry, takes on critical new meaning.  Fatigue is common.  Caregivers can suffer from loneliness, helplessness and of being disconnected from friends during the slow downward spiral of Alzheimer’s.

During the slow journey, nearly 60% will wander during some time.  For people with Alzheimer’s, their personal safety is at risk.  They can easily hurt themselves or others, become lost, dazed and confused, not knowing their own name. Wandering puts a patient in places and positions they often are incapable of understanding.  Their capacity to reason is impaired, yet in earlier stages they physically are relatively unencumbered. That’s the cruelty of the disease.  If you’re the caregiver, your life will be gravely affected.  It could lead you to depression, extreme sleep deprivation or both. Caregivers struggle to find time of their own, free of worry.  The things we take for granted like being able to shower, do laundry, cook meals, clean house or reading quietly become major challenges in homes with Alzheimer’s patients.

Timing Is Everything

If timing is everything in life, it’s certainly never been truer than

 with Alzheimer’s.  The slow progression of the disease in many patients creates unrelenting emotional strain on family and caregivers over an extended period of time.  Left unchecked many patients inevitably end up in a nursing home.  Their families unable to cope with the stress any longer.

Early intervention in many situations can bring peace of mind to the caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. There is hope with alternative strategies for keeping an Alzheimer’s patient at home; solutions that help relieve some of the emotional and physical burdens of caregiving.

Vivax’s Soma Safe Enclosure

A relatively new product from Vivax Medical, the Soma Safe Enclosure, known in generic terms as a canopy bed, net bed, safety bed, safety-net bed, Vail bed or enclosed bed system, provides a safe, secure and humane environment for those prone to wandering or at risk of injury from falling down or other accidents.  It’s a twin bed except that it is fully enclosed with black mesh netting zippered on all sides. Though the individual is unable to open the zippered windows from within, they nonetheless have full freedom of movement and field of vision.  Similar to a child’s crib, which gives a parent the security of knowing their child is safe from potential harm while they are asleep or otherwise occupied, so the Soma Safe Enclosure gives a caregiver the piece of mind that their Alzheimer’s patient is comfortable and safe.

Overcoming Our
Misperceptions

Is this incarceration?  The best answer to that question is that those people for whom this device was designed don’t perceive the interior world of the enclosure as you or I might.  The cognitively impaired mind of a person with Alzheimer’s just doesn’t perceive of surroundings as a normal person does.  In fact, in clinical studies with dementia patients, they felt “secure and cozy”, almost “cocoon-like” in the enclosure.  They never felt claustrophobic or “caged”.  In fact, the spouses of study patients related how very comfortable they were about the use of enclosures given the alternatives. 

Reluctance to consider using a Soma Safe Enclosure is really more about our own biases and

 perceptions than about how our loved one may actually respond to it. If the end result can help smooth out caregiver stresses and anxiety and/or reduce the risk of fall-related injuries without upsetting the Alzheimer’s individual who’s better off?

Caregivers who must make the difficult decision to place their relatives with Alzheimer’s into institutionalized care get no relief from depression and anxiety and in fact suffer additional emotional trauma following their decision, according to results of a multi-site study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in August of 2004. Results from the four-year study of 1,222 caregiver-patient pairs found that for the 180 caregivers who had to turn over care of their loved one to an institution, symptoms of depression and anxiety stayed as high as they were when they were in-home caregivers.

The Healthcare Economic Case for Continued Care of Your Alzheimer’s Relative at Home.

Soma Safe Enclosures are available for home use on a rental basis at less than $15 per day. Compare that with expensive nursing homes or special assisted living facilities that can cost upwards of $250 per day.  Furthermore, care in a nursing home is uncertain at best.  Studies have shown that Alzheimer’s patients live and respond better when they are kept in familiar surroundings.

Early caregiver intervention is critical.  Don’t let fatigue build up until nothing looks possible except transfer to a nursing home.  If you see a situation developing, make the effort to explore the Soma Safe Enclosure option from Vivax Medical Corporation.

Sources:
1 Alzheimer’s Association Facts