In a recent column in the "New York Times," physician-author Danielle Ofri described an incident in which she and another doctor were examining a patient with Alzheimer's. "A fate worse than death," the other doctor murmured. Dr. Ofri, too, felt uncomfortable.
There was something almost shameful in bearing witness to a fellow human being's profound indignities.
The patient had been a prestigious artist and intellectual and to see him with only a sliver of his former intellectual capacities was, Dr. Ofri wrote, "beyond heartrending."
It's also heartrending, however, to be in the presence of a person dying painfully from cancer or of a person with a severe stroke that leaves her immobilized. These diseases, too, are accompanied by indignities, for instance, having to be wiped clean after defecating. These other diseases, however, do not create shame. Alzheimer's does. Why?
Dr Ofri writes,
"I was embarrassed for him, for how embarrassed he would likely be, if his former self could see his current self. That his current self lacked the capacity to be aware of his state offered little comfort."
Yes, we are embarrassed because his former self would have been embarrassed. That doesn't get us anywhere, though; it still doesn't answer the question of why he would feel embarrassed.
I'd like to suggest that we feel shame because we are looking at our future self as if we had our full mental faculties and were still behaving that same way.
After I became aware of my cognitive decline (and believed for a year that I had Alzheimer's), I did not feel embarrassed for myself even though I had the capacity to be aware of my mistakes. I was fully cognizant of my memory deficits and the problems it caused, and I was aware of my intermittent confusion. I had "lost" the $24,000 through no fault of my own but because my cognition was impaired. I might have been embarrassed if I hadn't told everyone I knew about my cognitive decline, but we all knew what was going on, so there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
True, my decline has been minimal compared to what others suffer. Nevertheless, I do forget names and faces I should remember; I miss appointments, even those I've written on my calendar; I have to ask others to take over more complicated intellectual tasks I can't manage anymore. I'm rarely embarrassed, however, and certainly not ashamed. It's not that I lack the capacity to feel shame; it's that we all know that there's a good physical reason I'm incapacitated.
I'm not alone.
I've communicated with other Alzheimer's patients (mostly in somewhat more advanced state than I) who also report that they feel little embarrassment or shame. Of the hundreds of people who have written me, no one has even mentioned embarrassment or shame on the part of the person with Alzheimer's (and I look forward to some responses to this post).
Why don't we experience embarrassment?
I can only speak for myself, of course, but it seems to me quite possible that, with increasing cognitive impairment, I will still be unembarrassed. Also, as Dr. Ofri mentions, as the disease progresses, I will become incapable of feeling embarrassed. So it's entirely possible that at no point in the course of this disease will I feel embarrassment.
Perhaps Alzheimer's is not a fate worse than death.
What would happen if we began to realize that when we get embarrassed or feel shame in the presence of a person with dementia we are really imagining a future we cannot actually imagine? Perhaps we could stop scaring one another and allow ourselves to relate more naturally to another person's cognitive impairment.