michael a. horvich cares about alzheimer's disease: Insight or Intuition? Real or Imagined? PART III

Friday, February 13, 2015

Insight or Intuition? Real or Imagined? PART III

Yesterday I visited Gregory after dinner. I asked him if he would like to see photographs from our visit to Paris and he replied, "Oh Yes!" I was amazed at how energetic his answer was and wondered if he really knew what I was asking.

When Gregory gets really excited about something he borders on being emotional and crying for joy, he was there at my suggestion to re-visit Paris.

I set up my iPhone to show the photographs on his large flat screen, 42" TV. While I have many, many photos of our time in Paris, I showed the album called "Reprise" which contained the best of the photos of all the places we visited while in Paris for 11 days.

In many ways this was a significant breakthrough in my interactions with Gregory as he really was engaged with the photos, and as I named the places and retold some of the stories he really responded appropriately.

Ironically he put on his "I am a French Man" role playing but now and then corrected my pronunciation of the names of the places we were discussing.

Periodically he lost focus on the TV but I was able to bring him back. One time he got a little perplexed with me and said, "I am looking at the TV!" Sure enough when I leaned over I could see he did have his eyes in the right place!

Throughout our looking at the 50+ photos he commented, agreed with my naming, responded to the stories. Periodically I would ask, "Are you enjoying this?" and he would reply, "OH YES!"

So lessons learned are that while Gregory's world is very narrow, and while he is comfortable with that world, it is not a bad idea to periodically revisit fun times we had in the past as long as their loss is not too traumatic. For example Paris was good, Mexico will probably be good, but I am not sure about looking at his past architecture projects and certainly would never show him photos of the condo!

I was so pleased with the evening Gregory and I spent together. I cannot describe the joy I felt at being able to give him this experience. I keep talking about "Little Miracles" and this was another one!

P.S. I enjoyed seeing the photographs as well!

Luxembourg Gardens

The Seine with Notre Dame in background.

Notre Dame Cathedral

The Louvre

The Metro

Carousel near the Metro stop by our apartment.

Pompidou Museum

Eiffel Tower

M. Goldberg's Deli in the Marai

Scene of an anti-Semitic bombing 20 years earlier.

Place des Vosges, a wonderful complex of old

apartments surrounding a the park on four sides.

Like most buildings in Paris, multi socio economic groups living together. Shop on first floor make second floor with short ceilings perfect for shop keepers apartments. Third floor with huge floor to ceiling windows for the wealthy. Fourth floor with smaller windows for middle class families. And finally fifth floor "Grotto" for students and the poor with single bedrooms and a shared bath.