Alzheimer's Disease Home Care

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with an insidious onset, a long course, and an irreversible condition. Mild cases may show apathy, few words, slow reaction, and memory loss. Severe cases may remain silent all day, be restless, and even develop mental symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and aggressive behavior. They are also prone to getting lost, which seriously affects the normal life of patients and their families. In the care of AD patients, family care plays an important role, and its importance can even exceed that of doctors and drugs. In addition to cognitive stimulation training and emotional care, Chinese medicine diet care and external treatment methods also have unique therapeutic effects.

Cognitive stimulation and training

Family care needs to focus on giving patients cognitive and sensory stimulation on a daily basis. Activities such as learning and exercise can help delay the decline of patients' cognitive functions. For example, for early-stage patients, they can play board games, card games, sandbags, shuttlecocks, Ba Duan Jin, do housework, etc.; for mid-stage patients, they can remember by looking at old photos, reminiscing about narratives, telling stories, etc., or perform multi-sensory stimulation (sound, light, smell), or perform simple kitchen chores such as peeling and stirring; for late-stage patients, they should be helped to laugh, hum songs, or perform tactile stimulation as much as possible.

Emotional Care

AD has a long course, and the patient's thinking style and personality will undergo great changes, and even lose basic daily living ability. Family members should understand the patient's difficulties and anxiety, patiently guide them, and help them regulate their emotions in a targeted manner. For example, patients with heart and liver fire and phlegm blocking the orifices will have positive symptoms such as extreme thinking, mental excitement, and irritability; patients with insufficient kidney essence and empty marrow will have negative symptoms such as depression and low mood.

Music therapy helps relieve emotions. According to traditional Chinese medicine, the five notes of Jiao, Zheng, Gong, Shang, and Yu correspond to the liver, heart, spleen, lung, and kidney, respectively, and the five notes can regulate the five internal organs. Patients with positive symptoms can choose the "Jiao" tune corresponding to the liver, that is, folk music with flute sounds that are pleasant, smooth, and moist, which can soothe the liver and regulate qi, and help calm the heart; patients with negative symptoms should choose the "Yu" tune corresponding to the kidney, that is, gentle, soft, and soothing music, to cheer up, calm the mind, and help sleep.

Dietary care

According to traditional Chinese medicine, the spleen is the source of phlegm. AD ​​patients often have insufficient spleen yang and phlegm blocking the orifices. They should not eat too much spicy and greasy food to prevent the endogenous generation of phlegm and dampness. It is advisable to eat more products that strengthen the spleen and kidney and eliminate turbidity, such as yam, coix seed, red bean, lotus leaf, hawthorn, wolfberry, sesame, etc.

Traditional Chinese medicine external treatment

Using traditional Chinese medicine foot baths, moxibustion, massage and other traditional Chinese medicine therapies can help patients nourish yang energy and promote the circulation of qi and blood.

For foot bath, you can use Chinese medicines such as Sichuan pepper, Evodia rutaecarpa, and mugwort, which have the effect of warming the yang and dispersing cold. Combined with hot water foot bath, the medicinal power can flow through the meridians, warm the three yin and three yang meridians of the foot, and help enhance the patient's yang energy.

Acupoint massage and moxibustion From morning to noon, tapping, pressing or moxibustion can be performed on the patient's head Baihui (located at the intersection of the midline of the top of the head and the line connecting the two ear tips), Si Shencong (located 1 inch in front, back, left and right of the Baihui point on the top of the head, a total of 4 points), Taiyang and other acupoints to help stimulate Yang Qi. Moxibustion is based on suspended moxibustion, and each point should be tapped for 2 to 3 minutes. For mild patients, tapping can be done by the patient himself, 100 times per point, which is also a training of counting ability. You can also tap the well point Yongquan of the kidney meridian (located at the sole of the foot, approximately at the intersection of the front 1/3 and the back 2/3 of the line connecting the head of the second and third metatarsal toe seam and the heel), which has the function of stimulating Yang Qi, unblocking blood vessels, and awakening the mind and opening the orifices.

Note: Please follow your doctor’s advice on specific treatment and medication!

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• This article is transferred from: China Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine Author: Jin Xianglan Song Jiale

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