From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 03 2003 - 11:14:45 EST
November 3, 2003 == MEDIA ADVISORY
November is National Alzheimer's Awareness Month.
For Calvin professor Glenn Weaver marking the month is both a personal and
professional responsibility. That's because as a professor of psychology one
of his areas of expertise is Alzheimer's and spirituality. But he also saw
Alzheimer's up-close in his mother.
Weaver says Christians think of Alzheimer's as a health problem, which it is,
but do not ponder its spiritual significance.
His mother was diagnosed with the disease in the mid 1980s. He says after the
diagnosis the family had a label for what afflicted their mother and a grim
prognosis, but they had little insight into the psychological meanings
Alzheimer's might hold for her life, including her spiritual life.
Weaver has been pleased to see the spiritual side of Alzheimer's becoming more
widely addressed in recent months.
He was recently quoted in a Fort Myers, Florida, newspaper article about a new
Sunday worship service at Arden Courts, a Fort Myers assisted-living community
for Alzheimer's patients
The service is designed specifically for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.
It's shorter. Sermons are simple. Familiar hymns are sung. No one cares if
someone speaks out or stands up at the wrong time.
Weaver says such services need to happen not only at assisted-living
communities, but also local churches, synagogues, mosques and more.
"It's important," he says, "to give patients a sense of being 'located in
moral space.'"
He has made that a primary area of his research in recent years. In 2000 he
pulled together a team of Calvin psychology majors and they set about
interviewing family members of Alzheimer's patients, looking, says Weaver, for
changes in experiences of God and faith. And while the research continues, it
has already brought to light some important truths about the relationships
between dementia and spirituality.
Some are obvious. People with dementia lose the ability to follow most
text-based presentations, including listening to sermons or following the order
of a worship service. Says Weaver: "People who relied on these activities as
key mediators of God's grace often found it more difficult than before to find
God's presence when they most needed spiritual assurance and security."
But Weaver's research also showed that patients almost never have the
opportunity to take communion once they stop attending worship services. It's a
vital oversight he says.
"It's amazing the awakening of memory that taking communion can have. It
offers a sense of community. But it also takes on a new meaning -- this is the
presence of Christ for you. It makes it real and concrete in a manner that
those suffering with Alzheimer's are capable of experiencing."
Scientists believe that up to five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's,
which usually begins after the age of 60. Alzheimer's is a slow disease,
starting with mild memory problems and ending with severe brain damage.
According to the National Institute on Aging the course the disease takes, and
how fast changes occur, vary from person to person. On average, patients live
from eight to ten years after they are diagnosed, though the disease can last
for as many as 20 years.
Contact Glenn Weaver at 616-526-6220
-end-
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