Stages.

In the second unit of my Steam course called Mind, we learned about the nervous system, by focusing on one disorder that impacts multiple aspects of the mind: autism. We also learned about different mental illnesses. The purpose of this action project is to create a sensory experience for my classmates to experience for a moment, and see the world through the eyes of someone with a mental disorder. We also had to create a flier stating information about the disease I picked. For my action project I did some research on my Great-Grandmother who is 90 years old and has full blown Alzheimer’s. I picked Alzheimer’s because I like learning more about this mental disease and since I work at a Nursing Home and my Great Grandmother has it I feel comfortable talking about it.

In the DSM-V it says that Alzheimer's is one of the Etiological Sub types, which says that Alzheimer’s is dementia. Alzheimer's is a disease that affects the brain, it’s a disease that slowly kills the neurons in your brains and usually starts slowly and gets worse over time. Most common symptom is forgetting daily tasks. In Alzheimer's, there are four stages to Alzheimer’s, Stage 1 – No impairment. Stage 2 – Minimal Impairment/Normal Forgetfulness. Stage 3 – Early Confusional/Mild Cognitive Impairment. Stage 4 – Late Confusional/Mild Alzheimer's. An Alzheimer's patient’s mood can change for many different reasons. Sun-downing is a condition that affects people with Alzheimer’s elderly usually become confused or disoriented at the end of the day. This can last from 5-8 pm it may prevent people with dementia from sleeping well. It may also make them more likely to wander. Sun-downing is a main cause in Alzheimer's, it causes pain to the patient and also makes them very aggressive. For my project I asked questions to my Grandpa who’s mother has full blown Alzheimer’s.

Grandpa: Son of my great grandmother. “Its hard living with my mother because she constantly forgets how to do certain things. She forgets where the bathroom is, where her room is and even forgets the family members that are taking care of her. She also gets very aggressive when we are just trying to help her, going to bed at night is the worse because she just wants to stay up and walk around the house but she can’t because she ends up getting in the wrong things. Its so hard seeing her going through this but I know we are doing our best to keep her healthy and most importantly keeping her around.”

My lesson plan experiment, my classmates will wear tinted sunglasses because old people can’t see well, latex gloves with tape around two fingers so your hands feel weak trying to pick up items, and headphones with random noise playing because some Alzheimer's patients hear loud noises. This experiment will make people experience what Alzheimer patients go through.