Father’s Day was a little “complicated” in our family. Through my own stupidity (or arrogant “dumbness”) I managed to get myself dehydrated on Saturday from heat and sun exposure and lack of sufficient hydration. Turns out that I am taking two medications that may have interacted in that both work by regulating the kidney.

So with a very low blood pressure and dizziness and some temporary short cognitive responses, I was brought into the ER at 1 PM. We had been going to see a movie for Father’s Day before I stumbled getting out of the car.

It was an “interesting” day to say the least. Everything was fine less than eight hours later; I had rehydrated, the blood pressure came up and medication adjustments were made.

Never one to be turned away from trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I came up with the following mind map to explain what had happened and more importantly what may have failed in the healthcare system that ended up in my creation of a number of costs that were quite unnecessary and will be paid by the US Medicare insurance. My guess is that had $20-$50 annually have been available to help educate and monitor my self care behaviors through a dementia life plan customized for my medical and psychological issues and history of medical problems, we might have avoided several thousand dollars of emergency care caused by the combination of my unknowing risky behavior and the fact that I am taking two medications that may have jointly affected my physiology in an unusual way that interacted with hydration.

If we can develop Self Care Plans for individuals in the early stages of dementia we probably can avoid at least some unnecessary healthcare costs and some of the burden on unpaid, family caregivers.

It is also very important to further train healthcare providers about dealing with individuals with dementia. Doctors and nurses seem — like most people — to assume that those with dementia will be clearly “sick” in an easily discernable way. I am still literate (although increasingly I use the wrong words) and able to communicate in a way that greatly exceeds my true level of disease. But I cannot figure out stupid stuff like how avoid getting dehydrated to such a great degree and monitoring myself so that I do not end up in the ER while at the same time I can still discuss technical details with healthcare providers but not necessarily able to recall what was being said a few minutes (seconds) later or agreeing with provider’s logic but being unable to follow the same logical train of thought and action later on my own part. I think that doctors and nurses may overestimate how well the “average person with dementia” is functioning because most of the cases they see are late stage Alzheimer’s Disease and by comparison, people in the earlier stages who cannot figure out to stay out of the sun may still seem more like “typically aging individuals” rather than individuals with very significant neurocognitive issues.

My ideas in a MindModel (aka mind map). Click on the image to expand the MindModel.