Video: 12 minutes of Dementia/Alzheimer's - All Caregivers should see and/or experience this....

Hmm.. I saw this years ago... I do not see how you can simulate dementia/alzheimers with putting on gloves and goggles. What they are simulating are some physical aspects of old age like macular degeneration. You can have dementia and have none of this.

For dementia simulation you would have to erase your memory, take mind altering drugs, feel lost ,scared, disoriented all the time. I don't think this video depicts dementia at all. .. but maybe that is just me.

I had the same reaction as you did, katiekay. This isn't "dementia" being simulated. But it certainly gives a thought-provoking look at how altering the messages from our senses to our brains also dramatically alters our cognitive abilities.

Persons with dementia may not have macular degeneration -- but they very often aren't getting reliable signals from their vision to their brains. They see things that others don't see. They can't see or recognize things right in front of them. They may not have arthritis, but they often have problems with hand/eye coordination or depth perception that make handling things more difficult. And many (not all) report hearing meaningless noises.

So while this isn't exactly what it is like to have dementia, it is close enough in concept to be very eye-opening and thought-provoking. I think it is a video worth watching.

Sorry if I presented this inaccurately - I simply took the title from the article as it was posted. I do think it has value and insight into what it's like to be an elderly adult with multiple health issues, like arthritis, macular degeneration and possibly Alzheimers or Dementia. I think they could have presented it better to the people doing the experiment by moving things around in the house, putting them out of reach or in unexpected places, taking the knobs off the stove or putting a pan of water to boil on the stove behind their back, leaving it for them to discover later, having a loved one trying to help them and getting frustrated with them, yelling to be heard and finally walking away in frustration - THAT is more of an accurate depiction of what it would be like to a normal person to have Alzheimers or Dementia.

Susan, I was looking for a specific video I saw a while back and stumbled into this thread. Interesting. I'm going to share this with others in my FB.... I'm sure like 99.9 % will not look at it but... I'm not going to hide under a rock and pretend that caregiving is easy, enjoyable. Plus, I had remained silent, private when I was helping dad caregiving mom. When mom died, almost everyone praised my brother for taking very good care of mom. Bro lives next door and rarely came in - not even at Xmas. So, now, I'm on a mission to educate my relatives what we caregivers face...