Name: 【TED】Beth Malone: How my dad's dementia changed my idea of death (and life) (How my dad's dementia changed my idea of death (and life) | Beth Malone)
Uploaded: 2017-12-07T17:51:52.000Z
Duration: 7 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's a confusing disease that hits people in their 50s or 60s.

It can completely change someone's personality,

and we had to move him out of his house --

the house that he built with his own hands.

My strapping, cool dad with the falsetto singing voice

had to move into a facility for round-the-clock care

At first my mom and sisters and I made the mistake

of putting him in a regular nursing home.

it had plush carpet and afternoon art classes

"Ms. Malone, we've arrested your father."

"Well, he threatened everybody with cutlery.

And then he yanked the curtains off the wall,

and then he tried to throw plants out the window.

And then, well, he pulled all the old ladies out of their wheelchairs."

we bounced him between a bunch of state-run facilities

before finding a treatment center specifically for people with dementia.

and found him sitting hunched over on the ground wearing a onesie --

those kinds of outfits that zip in the back.

I watched him for about an hour as he yanked at it,

but to me it looked like a straightjacket.

this really deep guttural cry coming out of the pit of my belly.

would think that this kind of life was worth living anymore.

We're programmed to prioritize productivity.

So when a person -- an Adonis in this case --

is no longer productive in the way we expect him to be,

all I could imagine was that my dad was being tortured

and his body was the vessel of that torture.

I've got to get him out of that body; I'm going to kill Dad.

"You don't want to live the rest of your life

And you don't even know how to buy heroin."

The truth is we talk about his death a lot.

When will it happen? What will it be like?

But I wish that we would have talked about death when we were all healthy.

but I've got to get him out of that body.

And then a priest, and then a support group,

sometimes people hang on when they're worried about loved ones.

Just tell them you're safe, and it's OK to go when you're ready.

I found him hunched over on the ground in the onesie.

He was staring past me and just kind of looking at the ground.

and just started talking about nothing in particular,

but as I was talking, he sneezed from the ginger ale.

And the sneeze -- it jerked his body upright,

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【TED】Beth Malone: How my dad's dementia changed my idea of death (and life) (How my dad's dementia changed my idea of death (and life) | Beth Malone)

prioritize

practical

specifically

expect