21 ways a 5-year-old and an Alzheimer’s patient are so much alike

Last week I spent four fine days with my grandson in New York, while he was off school and his parents were working. We played games, assembled a puzzle, made pictures, and built Legos at home in between outings to the library and two different museums. It was a big week! He’s an inquisitive, delightful 5-year-old ready to turn 6 in December, enjoying his kindergarten year and pleasing his parents with something new he’s learning every day.

I thought about home the whole time I was away, of course. And it dawned on me that, although my grandson is great in every way, caring for a preschooler has definite similarities to my caregiving duties in Ohio. I jotted a few comparisons through the week, which I’ve decided to share here. Grandparents and other caregivers can decide if you relate.

1. Both preschoolers and Alzheimer’s sufferers get distracted easily.

2. Both will read whatever you put in front of them, whether they understand it or not.

3. When they are reading, both of them often (usually?) read out loud.

4. Both think they know more than they do.

5. Both surprise you with what they DO know.

6. Both ask questions for which you have absolutely no answer.

7. Both need extra attention when you’re crossing the street.

8. Both want what they want when they want it.

9. Both assume you’re there for them and you’re happy to meet their needs.

10. Both are better served if you anticipate what they’ll want or need.

11. Both need you to decide for them.

12. Both sometimes resist or rebel when you do decide for them.

13. Both may awaken you in the night, their silhouette slipping through the bedroom when you have no idea why they’re up and awake.

14. Both move slowly and with many interruptions when you’re working to get them ready and out the door.

15. Both are happy to stay home, even with so many opportunities for them in the world outside.

16. Both can lose something precious and no one has any idea how or where it vanished.

17. Both may decide they have more on their plate than they can eat. So you gladly finish it for them. (No wasting food here!)

18. Both leave you feeling guiltily relieved when they choose some way to occupy themselves alone and you can take a break.

19. But no matter how tired you may get looking after them, nothing could change how deeply you want the very best for them.

20. Both need to know you love them, and they respond to your love in ways that you may not understand or realize or appreciate. None of this leads you to love them any less.

21. In fact, at the end of every day, you realize you could not love anyone more.

 . . . And three important ways they’re different

1. The 5-year-old surprises you every time you see him with how he’s grown and how his abilities to think and talk and learn are increasing. You see the idiosyncracies of early childhood disappearing in him.

But every surprise with the Alzheimer’s patient comes from seeing yet another lost ability or a diminished capacity. You see the limitations of childhood returning to her.

2. Instructions to the 5-year-old are for his future. Instructions to the Alzheimer’s patient are to protect a fragile present.

3. Finally, on a lighter note . . . . The preschooler can go four-plus hours without a bathroom break, and his grandmother? I don’t think that’s been true for years, maybe decades, maybe not since SHE’s been 5 years old!