Description:
A frequent sentiment of many professional and family caregivers is that persons with advanced Alzheimers disease have lost the essence of who they are. This belief can lead to a decrease in desire, time, and energy caregivers invest with patients who "will not remember I was there anyway," or in whose lives "I can not make any difference anyway." This presentation will take a deep look into the concept of personhood that supports this view and give examples of its moral, ethical and social consequences in history. It will offer thought-provoking alternative views of personhood that challenge participants into a deeper and more spiritual analysis of human nature and worth. Using stories with Alzheimer's patients that illustrate this alternative view of personhood. The caregiver will receive a novel look into a world where an enhanced respect for the cognitively impaired can result in a mutuality and wholeness between caregiver and patient neither would have experienced otherwise.

Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify several philosophical and theological assumptions of what constitutes personhood and human worth, especially as it relates to persons who have a diminished cognitive capacity. Participants will be able to describe the moral, ethical and historical implications of those positions.
• Participants will be able to discover their own assumptions regarding the issue of personhood and human worth, which directly influences their attitude towards persons with advanced AD, and the frequency and quality of their visits.
• Participants will be able to identify the main psychological and spiritual needs of person’s with advanced AD and identify what caregiver attitudes and interventions are necessary to meet those needs and to maintain the personhood of those with advanced AD.
  
  
  

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