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The Emotional Toll Of Alzheimer’s : Navigating Mental Health Challenges

Niharika — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 04:40:04 +0000

Inflicting a slow loss of cognitive function and memory, Alzheimer’s disease is a strong adversary. It affects not only the individual who is afflicted but also their relatives and careers significantly because it is one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer’s disease adversely affects mental health in addition to its well-known physical symptoms. We will examine the complex connection between mental health and Alzheimer’s disease in this blog, highlighting the difficulties that patients and their loved ones encounter.

In India, the prevalence of dementia among persons 60 and older is estimated to be 7.4%. Over 60-year-old Indians with dementia number about 8.8 million. Dementia is more common in women than in men, and in rural areas than in metropolitan ones. The issues brought on by dementia and Alzheimer’s have received some attention from the Indian government. One such program with the goal of enhancing dementia care and assistance is the National Dementia Strategy.

Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease

Memory loss, behavioural abnormalities, and progressive cognitive deterioration are the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. It is a major contributor to dementia and primarily affects elderly persons. Researchers believe that a mix of genetic, environmental, and behavioural factors contribute to the condition, even if the exact reason is yet unknown. Everybody affected by the disease may find it emotionally upsetting as the disease progresses since people may find it difficult to complete simple chores, forget about loved ones, and change their personalities.

The Impact on Mental Health

Depression and Anxiety:

Depression and anxiety are typical symptoms for people with Alzheimer’s. It can be emotionally painful for someone to realize that their cognitive abilities are deteriorating. Additionally, the inability to carry out daily duties and the loss of independence can result in feelings of hopelessness and dissatisfaction.

Caregiver Stress:

Family members or professional careers frequently shoulder the responsibility of caring for a person with Alzheimer’s. Their mental health may also suffer as a result of this duty. Careers may experience chronic stress, anxiety, and depression due to the obligations of caregiving and the burden of seeing their loved one deteriorate.

Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms:

Aggression, agitation, and hallucinations are examples of problematic behaviours that can be a sign of Alzheimer’s. These signs and symptoms can be quite upsetting for both the Alzheimer’s patient and their careers. It can be emotionally taxing and might require specialized care to control these behaviours.

Social Isolation:

As people with Alzheimer’s have trouble communicating and remembering things, this can make them withdraw from social situations. Feelings of loneliness and depression may be made worse by this seclusion.

How work-related stress can impact those dealing with Alzheimer’s?

Impact on Individuals with Alzheimer’s:

Cognitive Decline: Alzheimer’s disease causes cognitive impairment, making it difficult for individuals to manage tasks and responsibilities at work. Stress from work can exacerbate cognitive decline, leading to increased forgetfulness and confusion.
Emotional Toll: People with Alzheimer’s may find it difficult to emotionally manage their work-related stress. Their general well-being may suffer as their anxiety and dissatisfaction may intensify.
Discrimination and Stigma : At employment, some people with Alzheimer’s may experience stigma or prejudice, which adds to their stress. It’s possible that coworkers or managers don’t fully get the difficulties they’re dealing with.
Reduced Productivity: Reduced cognitive function can result in decreased performance and productivity at work, which may cause career failures.

Impact on Caregivers:

Balancing Work and Caregiving: Alzheimer’s patients’ careers frequently balance two responsibilities at once: looking after their loved ones and keeping their own jobs. It can be incredibly stressful to juggle these obligations, which might result in burnout.
Reduced Work Hours: To provide proper care, some careers may need to work fewer hours or abandon their employment, which can cause financial stress.
Emotional Strain: For careers, being forced to watch a loved one with Alzheimer’s deteriorate emotionally can be extremely taxing. Even when they are at work, they could be preoccupied with thoughts of their loved one’s welfare.
Lack of Support: Many careers do not have access to flexible work schedules or enough support from their employers, which can increase their stress levels.

Ways to Address Work-Related Stress in the Context of Alzheimer’s:

Open Communication: Individuals with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers should have open discussions with their employers about their situation. This can help employers understand the challenges and potentially offer accommodations or support.
Flexible Work Arrangements: Employers may consider providing flexible work hours, telecommuting options, or part-time work to accommodate caregivers.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs): EAPs often offer counseling and support for employees dealing with personal and family issues, including caregiving stress.
Time Management: Caregivers should prioritize tasks and manage their time effectively to balance work and caregiving responsibilities.
Respite Care: Utilizing respite care services or seeking help from family members or hired caregivers can provide caregivers with much-needed breaks.
Stress Management: Both individuals with Alzheimer’s and caregivers should practice stress management techniques, such as mindfulness, meditation, or therapy, to cope with the emotional toll.
Legal and Financial Planning: Planning for the long-term care of the individual with Alzheimer’s, including legal and financial arrangements, can help alleviate some stressors.
Support Groups: Joining support groups for Alzheimer’s caregivers can provide emotional support and valuable advice on managing stress.

Alzheimer’s disease is a debilitating ailment that has more than just physical symptoms. It has a significant effect on mental health, having an effect not just on persons who have been diagnosed but also on their loved ones and careers. The most effective management techniques for the mental health issues brought on by Alzheimer’s disease include seeking professional assistance, participating in support groups, and placing a high priority on self-care. The best way to provide greater assistance and enhance the general wellbeing of persons affected by this condition is through increased understanding and research into the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and mental health.

For more blogs and articles, visit our official website or connect with us at wellness@cecureus.com /1800 121 9497.

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Start Assessing your Emotional Wellness today – by Dr. Bhavna | The Holistic Wellness Self-Assessment |

Niharika — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 14:10:14 +0000

Emotional wellness is an integral part of our overall well-being and affects our day-to-day functioning and behaviour. If left unchecked, overwhelming emotional problems can unsettle our lives and the lives of those around us. The extended pandemic has thrown a sharp focus on our emotional wellness and has left numerous employees across sectors wondering how to achieve emotional wellness for themselves and their loved ones or someone they know, so they can cope with situations better.

Based on the Workshop conducted by CecureUs in collaboration with Dr. Bhavna, we discuss the different ways of assessment of the level of emotional wellness of employees, understanding the severity of our problems, taking corrective measures, and building a lifestyle to help employees feel better now and going forward in the new post-covid normalcy that will hopefully soon follow.

Part #1 of this blog looks at multiple ways to effectively assess the emotional wellness of employees and identify what problems may be ailing them. The assessment can then help us recognize the kind of help they may need or the changes to make in their day-to-day lives to feel better and maintain healthy emotional wellness.

We begin by asking – What is Emotional wellness?

Emotional wellness can be defined as the state of well-being that allows an individual to:

Fulfil their potential
Be able to cope with problems and situations better even in times of adversities, like Covid-19
Be able to do productive work while having a sense of purpose
Be able to make a contribution to society

While these definitions give any employee keen to make an assessment or an overall understanding of how emotional wellness feels, they may not help us gauge our problems or emotional well-being completely.

To do that, we discuss three assessments that can help evaluate the emotional wellness of ourselves or those around us.

Assessment of the level of Emotional Wellness:

Self-assessment based on some specific parameters:

Our emotional states depend on our problems and manifest in different ways. Emotional wellness is also unique from person to person. Some of us may feel frustrated more often, and some may feel extremely tired and spent emotionally and physically. Many of us may also question our physical and emotional capabilities because of our problems, and some may be experiencing body aches and pains more than the usual threshold. Headaches, disturbed sleep patterns for long periods, negative thoughts, and prolonged low levels of concentration and motivation are a few more parameters that can help us understand the impact of our problems on emotional wellness. These parameters are easy to comprehend through simple self-assessment tests.

If an employee has been experiencing any or more of the above for prolonged periods, it clarifies that their emotional wellness is not currently up to the mark and needs all the attention it can get.

Identifying our potential:

Potential versus achievement can reveal to an employee the information about their emotional states. One of the best ways to identify our potential and emotional wellness is by performing a SWOT analysis. SWOT is nothing but an S – Strength, W – Weakness, O – Opportunity, and T – Threat analysis.

Strengths and weaknesses are generally temperamental or based on character and feelings. Opportunities and threats are circumstantial.

If an employee has identified their potential and sees that their performance falls short of their current potential, it could be a red flag.

This is another assessment that can help an employee identify any problem with their emotional wellness.

Types of responses to critical incidents:

Any incident draws out a response from us, however minute. (An apt example of a critical incident is Covid-19). Our bodies and minds are no different. Based on what’s happening around us, or even within us, or the problems we face, our emotional wellness changes, and there are several ways our body responds to critical incidents, be it at home or at work. These physical and emotional responses may sometimes be unbeknownst to us, working as symptoms of deeper emotional problems that we need to be aware of.

Below are the different types of responses to critical incidents that help in assessing our emotional wellness:

– Somatic Responses:

Somatic responses mean bodily responses, which are mentioned below.

Insomnia – Is a sleep disorder that affects the ability of an individual to have a good long sleep.

Insomnia can be classified into 3 types:

Initial Insomnia (An individual finds it difficult to fall asleep. Sleep always seems farther away than desired), Middle Insomnia (An individual finds it difficult to remain asleep and wakes up several times in between, effectively breaking the sleep cycle), and Terminal Insomnia (An individual wakes up much earlier than desired and cannot fall asleep again).

Emotional Eating – Overeating or giving up on food due to appetite loss.
Aches and pains – You May feel aches and pains in different parts of the body without much reason for the aches.
Heavy head, headaches – Pain in the front part of the brain (frontal cortex), migraine.
Palpitations – Irregular beating of the heart. Most commonly feels like the heart skipped a beat or beats too fast.
Fatigue and tiredness – Feeling emotionally and physically drained, tired, and low on energy.

– Cognitive Responses:

Difficulty in paying attention, poor concentration, and loss of focus
Indecisiveness
Increase in forgetfulness
Procrastination
The ruminative pattern of thinking – Thinking of something particular for a prolonged period

– Affective Responses:

Internalizing stress to our problems manifests as follows – feeling low, disinterest in activities, negative thought processes, social isolation, feeling hopeless and helpless, being prone to anxiety and phobias, and OCD.
Externalizing stress manifests as anger, short-temper, Irritability, and displaced anger (Showing anger meant for someone or some other situation on someone else)

– Behavioural Responses:

Demotivated and discouraged
Procrastinating
Less productive
Avoiding situations and absenteeism
Presenteeism – Being present physically but mentally and emotionally absent.
Overindulgence in social media
Increased consumption of caffeinated drinks like Tea and Coffee
Increased consumption of Alcohol
Smoking
Use of drugs (illegal substances or self/unauthorized prescriptions of pharmaceutical drugs

The responses help in the assessment of emotional wellness in a more detailed and descriptive manner. If an employee notices some or many of these responses or reactions in themselves or someone near and dear to them, chances are the employee/ dear one’s emotional wellness is not healthy.

Assessing and identifying form the first few steps to emotional wellness. However, acknowledging that one’s emotional well-being is not healthy is of prime importance. Once this is achieved, emotional recovery can be facilitated much more effectively. The resultant healing would help us deal with the current situation and equip us to be better prepared for any situation that life may throw at us without overturning our emotional and mental well-being.

To know more about our Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH), Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (D,E&I) and Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) solutions do write to us at connect@cecureus.com or call us at +91-7200500221.

The post Start Assessing your Emotional Wellness today – by Dr. Bhavna | The Holistic Wellness Self-Assessment | appeared first on Prevention of Sexual Harassment, Inclusive Diversity, Employee Assistance Program | CecureUs | Chennai.