In this game, you are an elderly version of yourself with Alzheimer's Disease. This is the most common form of dementia, which 60-70% of memory loss cases consist of.
You had previously been living at home, but it started to become difficult for you to get around your house and keep up with rush of everyday life. You and your family decide it would be best for you to move to a residence with assisted care. Together you decide that the Ovation Jewish Home, on the edge of downtown Milwaukee, would be the best place to reside.
You are often embarrassed or ashamed of your memory loss. Because of this, your goal is to succeed in hiding your problem from others.
[[Stage One, Part One]]You are sitting downstairs in the lobby of the Ovation home, waiting for your family to arrive. Today you are going to show them how you are settling into the new place. When they arrive you say hello, exchange hugs and head toward the elevator. You get to the elevator, but you are so excited that you forget what floor you live on. You don't want to worry your family about it.
[[Just walk in towards the back of the elevator, that way they will just press the button for you without any worry.]]
[[Just ask them what floor you live on. After all, does one small question really hurt?]]You walk back into the corner of the elevator. Your daughter gives you an odd look. She asks you if you're fine, you just say yes and pretend to look confused. She shrugs it off and presses your floor number.
[[Stage Two, Part One]]You ask them what floor you live on again. Everyone laughs a bit, maybe they just think you're messing with them. Your daughter tells you that you live on the third floor. You press the button and head on up.
[[Stage Two, Part One]]You’ve made a friend at the Ovation Home, to whom you have bragged over and over again about your perfected peanut butter cookie recipe. Finally, you decide to invite her over to be the judge herself. You were confident you had the recipe memorized, but the day of you realize you’ve forgotten most of the ingredient measurements.
[[Just guess the amounts and hope she likes them anyway.]]
[[Admit that you forgot and ask her to help you get down the recipe box to look at what the amounts are.]]You admit your forgetfulness to your friend and she smiles. “Oh don’t worry, I go through moments like this all the time. Of course I’ll help you!” You find the recipe and make some delicious, perfect cookies.
[[Stage Two, Part Two]]It’s game night at the Ovation Home, and tonight you’ll be playing one of your favorite games, Yahtzee. It’s your first turn and you roll the five dice, but then forget what you’re supposed to do with the dice.
[[Avoid the situation by telling a staff member you need to go to the bathroom.]]
[[Just ask another player what to do first.]]You turn to your friend next to you and ask him what he thinks you should do next. He’s happy to help you, and shows you that you have three dice with a 6 facing up, meaning you should keep those.
[[Stage Three, Part Two]]You’ve been having problems with your cable box, so a staff member called a maintenance worker for you. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and you’re waiting for the worker to show up. You wait an hour and he still hasn’t come, so you decide to call. He says he wasn’t supposed to be coming till tomorrow, and you’re embarrassed.
[[Say you would have rather he come today because you have plans tomorrow, even though you really don’t.]]
[[Apologize for getting mixed up, and say you’ll see him tomorrow then.]]You tell him you have an outing to go to tomorrow and reschedule for a week and a half out. You’re disappointed that you’ll have to go without television for a while now.
[[Stage Four, Part Two]]You apologize and confirm that tomorrow will work just fine. He’s nice about it and says no worries at all! Your cable box is fixed on Wednesday and you are very happy.
[[Stage Four, Part Two]]A volunteer comes to visit with you and keep you company. She suggests that you take a walk to the art gallery and look at the new exhibit. When there, she points to a painting and asks, “what’s your favorite color in this?” You look at it, but only see a black and white picture.
[[Say "green", you can see there is grass so its most likely green.]]
[[Ask the volunteer to describe them, letting her know you are having trouble seeing shades.]]The volunteer gives you an odd look, and asks you how your vision has been recently. She says there isn’t green and that all the shades are warm tones because it’s an abstract. You’re very embarrassed.
[[Stage Six]]She says she’s sorry you’re having that problem, but not to be too worried about it. It’s just part of getting older. She describes the way that the piece is composed of all warm tones, as it’s an abstract.
[[Stage Six]]You are participating in a workshop about writing poetry. To you, writing is one of the important ways to express yourself. It’s always been easy and fun. The man next to you asks for you to explain the rhyme scheme they should be following. Mid explanation, you realize you forgot what you were talking about.
[[Ask the man to repeat what you said last, so you can continue your explanation where you left off.]]
[[You don’t want to show that you forgot, so excuse yourself to “blow your nose”.]]You ask him what the last point you made was. He says you were talking about the A and B pattern. You thank him, and continue on with your explanation.
[[Stage Seven]]He asks you if you could just finish your train of thought first, but you admit to having forgot. Nobody’s demeanor changes, and he tells you where you had left off so you can finish explaining.
[[Stage Seven]]Knock, knock! Your daughter has come to visit you. You are sitting in the kitchen together and she is telling you how your grandkids have been doing. While she’s talking, you look up and notice you have put your milk on the pantry shelf instead of into the fridge.
[[Ask her if she could grab something from the other room for you, and when she is out of eyesight put the milk back in the fridge.]]
[[Point out the milk to her so she can put it back for you.]]You ask her to go get your reading glasses off your bedside table. She seems a little upset you interrupted her, but gets up and goes to grab them for you. You try to rush over to the pantry to move the milk, but you are obviously not as fast as her and she sees you doing so.
[[Stage Eight]]You wait for your daughter to finish what she was saying and then point to the milk. She giggles a bit, but then says she will grab that for you, and puts it back in the fridge. You continue conversation.
[[Stage Eight]]You eyeball a fair amount of the ingredients. Once they’re done baking, you pull them out and notice they are hard and crumbly. Your friend is disappointed, and says “I think your recipe should call for a little less flour, dear.”
[[Stage Two, Part Two]]Your neighbor from the room next door pops in to say hello. She sees that you have a pile of boxes on the floor, you ordered some new pillows again. She asks you, “didn’t you just order pillows last week?”
[[Hide your careless spending by telling her you gave the last ones to your daughter.]]
[[Tell her you just couldn’t resist buying more.]]You say you had bought those other ones for your daughter. She points to the couch. “Isn’t that one of the ones you bought last time though?”
[[Stage Nine]]You say you just had to buy these ones, and she laughs. “Oh I have that problem too, but hey we might as well enjoy ourselves right? There’s no harm.”
[[Stage Nine]]Its movie night, but you don’t feel like going downstairs to join the viewing. You don’t want to be around anyone right now. At breakfast the next morning, everyone asks you where you were.
[[Lie and say you thought you had a fever.]]
[[Ask one of them to be a movie buddy, so next time you can go together.]]You just say you felt like you had the flu, and they look at each other and back at you. “Oh okay,” one says. They probably know you’re lying.
[[Stage Ten]]You say you just weren’t feeling like going, but you realize you should have just to get out to do something. You ask if someone would be your movie buddy next time, and they all say they’ll come get you to go together next week.
[[Stage Ten]]You tell the nearest staff member you need to go to the bathroom. You start heading out yourself, but they come along and question you about leaving the situation.
[[Stage Three, Part Two]]You're always ready for Sunday, it’s your favorite day of the week. Volunteers visit hourly and someone from your family always stops in. But today you’re afraid to leave your room, visiting sounds overwhelming and you’re feeling sad.
[[Stick around your room until your family members shows up, and lie, telling them you had a happy morning visiting with volunteers.]]
[[When your family members shows up, tell them you’ve been hiding in your room.]]You tell them you met with a few volunteers. They ask you who and what you talked about, and you have a hard time coming up with something to say. You end up just admitting to lying about it.
[[Stage Eleven]]You admit to your daughter and her husband that you had been hiding in your room all day. They don’t seem to be disappointed. Your son-in-law says, “hey, we all have days like that once in a while.”
[[Stage Eleven]]What a lovely day! Walking around the garden seems like just the thing to do. The path you’re on is buzzing with life. You decide to walk over to the fountain to sit by the running water. As you proceed towards it, you find your vision beginning to tunnel. You make it to the fountain and quickly sit.
[[Maybe you just had a spell, wait at the fountain until your vision corrects and quickly head back to your room.]]
[[Since you’re unsure as to why this is happening, wait at the fountain until someone walks by and ask them to help you get back to your room.]]You think your vision is just fine now, so you get up and start to rush back to your room. As you are going back, it gets bad again and you bump into someone. You almost fall, but luckily they catch you. That was a close one.
[[Stage Twelve]]You see one of the nurses walking someone else out to the garden. You flag them down and ask them if they could help you upstairs too once they’re both heading up. The nurse says of course, and you enjoy the garden together before heading up.
[[Stage Twelve]]You love children! So many are visiting today! Two little girls are running around the room you are in, playing hide and seek and giggling. You make a comment to a resident sitting next to you. “I love all the kids visiting today!” The resident responds, “its nice, but I’m glad none of them are in here, I like my quiet time.” You don’t understand, doesn’t he see the girls running around the room?
[[Keep it to yourself. “Yes, quiet time is nice.”]]
[[Ask him about the girls in the room. Does he not see them as well?]][[Conclusion]][[Conclusion]]As you have learned from this journey, dementia is not an easy condition to hide. Over time, it takes over much of your functioning and thinking. But it's always better to just be honest about how dementia is affecting you in order to get the best care you need. And it's important to remember that you are not alone, especially in a community of fellow seniors.
To read more about the stages represented in this game, you can go to https://alz.org/alzheimers_disease_what_is_alzheimers.asp
Wanna try again?
[[Welcome]]Before your family arrives today, you want to make sure your home is looking clean and put together. It appears you haven’t made much clutter, you just need to organize items you laid out on your bed. This shouldn’t take you that long, but when it’s almost time for your family to show up, you’re still not done.
[[Find a box and throw what is left on your bed into it to place it in the back of your closet.]]
[[Leave the items as they are on your bed and go meet your family downstairs in the lobby.]]You hide everything in a box and put it in your closet, hoping to hide your disorganization. When your family members show up and look around your new place, your daughter points the box out to you.
[[Stage One, Part Two]] When your family sees the items about on your bed, you tell them you didn’t realize how much time you would need to put them away. They offer to help you, and you have a great time together talking about all the keepsakes you have.
[[Stage One, Part Two]] The day after making cookies with your friend, you realize you had made so many that you could not possibly eat them all yourselves. You decide to go share them with other residents at the home. You start your cookie delivery by heading to the first door the next hallway over. You knock on the door before you can realize that this is the room of your friend that you made the cookies with. She opens the door.
[[Play it off by asking her if she wanted any more of the cookies.]]
[[Say you forgot she lived in this room.]]You tell her you wanted to check if she wanted any extra cookies. She gives you a funny look and says, "I mean, you gave me a big tub of them to begin with and I can't eat sweets that fast." You feel embarrassed.
[[Stage Three, Part One]] You admit to forgetting this was her room, and she tells you not to worry about it. After all, a lot of the doors look the same! She offers to help you pass out cookies.
[[Stage Three, Part One]] Yahtzee is finished, what a fun game! But you have a hankering to play Sorry!. You ask aloud, “would anyone like to play Sorry! now?” A few people mumble in agreement. One of the volunteers begin to move residents in wheelchairs to another table, and another begins to set up the game. Sitting and waiting, you decide you want to play Sorry!. You ask aloud, “Who wants to play Sorry! now?” One volunteer looks at you and jokingly comments, “someone is excited to play, we're setting it up right now.” You don’t seem to remember you already asked that question.
[[Show that you’re offended by her comment.]]
[[Honestly ask the volunteer if you repeated yourself.]]You make a fuss over her joking with you to hide your mistake. Everyone is taken aback, and the volunteer looks as if she might cry. You feel bad for hurting her feelings, and you only made yourself look rude instead of hiding anything.
[[Stage Four, Part One]] She respectfully lets you know how the situation played out. She follows up with asking if you would like her to come by for visits sometimes, in order to help you reflect on what you did during the week.
[[Stage Four, Part One]] The maintenance worker is here to fix the problems with your cable box. He is a polite man, but he seems to be taking a longer time than needed. It seems like a routine fix, what could be the hold up? Is he putting something in there that he shouldn't be? You recently read in the newspaper that people can add cameras to your TV and watch you.
[[Bug him about taking so long.]]
[[Mention what you read about putting cameras in TVs to see if he's aware of it.]]You get upset with him and ask why he's taking so long. He seems to be uncomfortable, but explains what the problem holding him up is. Later in the day, a staff member visits to confront you about the situation and your paranoia.
[[Stage Five]] You explain to him that you have been shaken by the piece you read, but he says not to worry. Not only does he show you exactly what he's doing with the cable box, but he tells you why that piece was inaccurate and is just meant to make people paranoid.
[[Stage Five]]