Since Dr G’s referral for a therapist for Miss Cathy didn’t
work out my next call was to Maureen Charlton, the Helpline Program Coordinator of the Fairfax, Virginia Alzheimer’s
Association® National Capital Area Chapter.
The Alzheimer’s Association is a wonderful organization and I
highly recommend them to anyone who has been touched by the disease. They have
a wealth of resources and information.
The first thing I was grateful for was that they helped me to
realize that I was not alone.
Their mission statement reads; “The Alzheimer's Association is the world's
leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer's care, support and research”.
But (like everything in life) I have found it best not to
depend on them completely and to think of them as just ‘one’ of your resources
and not the ‘only’ one.
After talking to Maureen and explaining what I needed she
emailed a list of doctors and therapists.
Unfortunately, as I learned a couple of years ago when I requested
a list of ‘Elder Lawyers’ (no, not ‘old lawyers’, rather ‘lawyers’ that
specialized in legal issues for the ‘old) I’ve learned that Alz.org’s information
and referrals are not always up to date or current.
I found more than ½ dozen of the physicians on the list that
she gave me for referrals was outdated.
Was I mad (no), did I get frustrated (yes) but considering the
help that they’d already given me and the fact they were mostly a volunteer
organization where everybody was doing their best I couldn’t ‘not’ cut them
some slack.
Besides, they were kind enough to feature my journey with Miss
Cathy as part of there “World
Alzheimer's Day Story Project” in 2011.
So, I took it
upon my self to compile my own list of names that needed to be deleted from
their list and emailed it to Maureen.
But, that still left me with more than enough professionals
to contact so I got work.
As I worked my way down the list of doctors and therapist
that were available to me I had to consider the very real possibility that this
could all be a huge waste of time. I mean lets face it, I was looking for a
therapist to help someone with problems that she might not remember having let
alone remembering the solutions once she got up off the couch.
But, if Miss Cathy thought therapy might help then it seemed
to me to be worth the effort to find her a good doctor, no matter the outcome.
Later that day I received an email from Maureen. She couldn’t
have been more apologetic and wrote ”We
do make every effort to keep our lists as accurate as possible, but as you
can imagine, we cover a large territory and things change”.
She said that she
was very appreciative of the info, but for me not to feel obligated, she knew
that I had a lot on my plate already.
I wrote back that I knew they were doing their best and I was
happy that I could help.
I just wanted to make sure that they updated their system so
that another caregiver (or heaven forbid) a person with Alzheimer didn’t spend
the day as I had trying to contact doctors that were either no longer in
practice, had moved or in one other case needed to be removed for an entirely
different reason.
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