Don’t Let Alzheimer’s Patients See the News on TV
November 2, 2007 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Keep Alzheimer’s patients from viewing the news on TV, mentions Jacqueline Marcell, author of Elder Rage. She relates how the news can confuse and alarm those with failing menories or lack of understanding of place and time.
In her post, Don’t Let Loved Ones with Dementia Watch the News!, Ms. Marcell gives the example of how watching the news about southern California’s fires affected her. Then she mentions when seeing the events of 9/11 on television saddened her, but confused and alarmed her mother.
Movies and television shows will do the same…when what they see gets “twisted into their reality.”
“Put on a beautiful romance or an uplifting comedy [instead of the news], so if they incorporate what they see into their distorted reality–it will only be love and laughter,” just as her parents did after watching a Clark Cable movie. They thought they had a job caring for his horses.
