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Coming out of the fog


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Here's a story about drugs that is far more uplifting than the general fare:

 

http://www.thetelegram.com/Opinion/Columnists/2014-04-26/article-3702665/Coming-out-of-the-fog/1

 

Coming out of the fog
Pam Frampton
Published on April 26, 2014
 

Last in a two-part series

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to.”
—  John Steinbeck, “East of Eden”

 

For the past eight years, Vicki Dyer has been the program director of the dementia ward at Lakewood, a continuing care centre in Waterville, Me., a pretty little city on the west bank of the Kennebec River.

 

Lakewood looks welcoming — a swath of green lawn and manicured grounds with trees and park benches and a rustic fountain like an old-fashioned, hand-cranked water pump.

 

Take the website’s pictorial tour and you’ll see a couple of cats luxuriously stretched out on windowsills or beds, and chickens scratching outside on a gravel run.

 

There’s a coop made to look like a little red barn, and on fine days the elderly residents can go outside to collect the eggs and hear the chickens clucking — an activity that often triggers fond memories of simpler times.

 

What you won’t find at Lakewood is dementia patients lolling listlessly in chairs, lost to the world in a psychotropic haze.

 

They just don’t give dementia patients anti-psychotic drugs at Lakewood.

 

“Not on my unit,” Dyer says.

 

More at above link...

I am not a medical professional and nothing I say is a medical opinion or meant to be medical advice, please seek a competent and trusted medical professional to consult for all medical decisions.

 

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