Dealing With Alzheimer’s I have many friends and family members going through exactly what you describe in “Confronting Alzheimer’s” (June 18). My parents haven’t gotten to the point of not being able to understand, but my mother is very stubborn about letting any of us control her life. Your article is the best conversation starter. My mom has read it. And since NEWSWEEK is a respected magazine, she is willing to listen for the first time to our pleas to let us help her. Thank you. Linda Brown Los Angeles, California
What wonderful, much-needed articles. So many people delay talking with their families about aging. As a caregiving instructor, I find it rewarding to be able to help families who find themselves confronting this potentially difficult time in their lives. The American Red Cross has a program for the public that focuses on caregiving. A nine-part series, it helps enhance caregiving skills, both physical and emotional. Topics include teaching bathing, grooming and toileting, and how to handle legal and financial issues of a dependent loved one. Interested caregivers can log on to redcross.org and go to Health and Safety Services. Joyce Phillips, R.N. Ann Arbor, Michigan
You gave a voice to those who can’t speak for themselves and showed the caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients that we are not alone in this struggle. My mom has Alzheimer’s and has just turned 91. Each day her memories get erased. She doesn’t know who I am, but I still believe that somewhere, locked away in her mind or heart, she does. I’m sending your article to my sibling. It has validated the fact that my husband and I are doing the right thing for my parents, and I pray it will touch others to get involved and help ease the burden for the caregivers. Rose Ann Merenda New Fairfield, Connecticut
My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994 after moving in with me after my father died. I was able to keep her with me until 2004, when I had to place her in a nursing home. I am single and my siblings live some distance from me, so I was the caregiver, and I worked full time. Mom and I talked about how I would handle everything according to her wishes. Dealing with nursing homes, hospitals and psychiatric hospitals was a nightmare. My advice to others in my position is to maintain a file for all the paperwork. Question every bill you get from the nursing home, because often it does not know what it charged you for or why. Keep a diary of all this. When you have to deal with the symptoms that force you to transfer your parent to a psychiatric facility for mental stabilization with drugs, make sure you meet with the psychiatrist and health team. Take one day at a time. Spend some time each day on a hobby, and plan one or two social outings a week. Keep your friends and neighbors informed about what is going on, and let your local police department know that you have a relative with Alzheimer’s. Also tell your boss about this problem. Understanding helps your job. Have an established relationship with your social worker. This will help when you run into problems. Mom wanted me to continue with my life. She passed away on May 19. In this adjustment period I am trying to slow down. I am enjoying my dogs and the sunshine of each day. Jerri Martin, R.N. Lewisville, Texas
Your article on Alzheimer’s was very informative. However, there was no mention of the wandering aspect of the disease and its effects on caregivers, as well as on law enforcement and searchers who respond to locate those who wander. Approximately 60 percent of those with Alzheimer’s will wander from their homes. A program called Project Lifesaver International can help. It is an association of law-enforcement and other public-safety agencies that have joined together to help and protect wandering Alzheimer’s victims. A member agency will enroll the wandering individual and provide a radio-transmitter wristband, which emits a radio signal that can be tracked to locate the person should he wander off and become lost. This program has saved more than 1,500 lives since it began in 1999, with no failures. Gene Saunders, CEO Project Lifesaver International Chesapeake, Virginia
As the daughter of an Alzheimer’s patient, I appreciate your focus on caregiver stress. I’ve seen how anxiety, depression and anger affect a caregiver’s immunity and overall health. Readers would do well to recognize hidden anger and how to respond to it because, too often, family dynamics such as resentment bring about sarcasm, all-or-nothing thinking, refusal to work with adult siblings and attempts at control: Alzheimer’s robs the patient and the family of any semblance of control, further compromising the cohesive family that everyone needs during this “long goodbye.” All family members have individual strengths to tap, so that each can be a resource to the others in a well-functioning family. Talking with “I messages,” taking a realistic position of what you can or can’t do, sharing feelings and decision making, and remembering self-care strategies make this more bearable and leave a better legacy once the parent’s journey ends. Thanks for the coverage. Loriann Hoff Oberlin, M.S., L.G.P.C. North Potomac, Maryland
The Search for God It’s always a pleasure to read Jon Meacham’s nuanced and finely calibrated articles on religion, and “The God Debate” (April 9) was no exception. I quote guru Gobind Singh, the founder of Sikhism and one of the 10 Sikh gurus, for Sam Harris’s consideration: “One cannot comprehend him through reason, even if one reasoned for ages.” Dominic Martyris Pune, India
Buddha means “the enlightened one.” Prince Siddhartha was called the Buddha only after his realization of the Four Noble Truths. Therefore, Rick Warren’s remark that in Buddha’s last moments he was still searching for the truth is incorrect. As a Buddhist, I believe in the existence of the Christian God and the gods of other religions. But in reality, gods themselves are mortals still trapped in the cycle of rebirth, aging and death. What Buddhists do not believe is that gods have omnipotent powers, or that they are creators of humans or of our universe. True Buddhists rely on their own actions (karma), wisdom and diligence for any mundane or, in the highest, ultramundane achievement, which is liberty (nirvana). On the individual scale, good and bad characteristics inherent in all human beings shape their positive and negative profiles. On the global scale, wealth, poverty, social inequalities, social order, war, famine, epidemics and disasters are to be understood as following nature’s principle of cause and effect rather than as acts of God. Moe K. Aung Rangoon, Burma
The debate on whether god exists is superfluous. God is a theoretical construct like “memes,” proposed by Richard Dawkins. God in some tenets of Hinduism can be willed (ishtadevata): we will God, therefore he exists. But it is another matter whether he (or she?) will help me win a cricket match! The concept of God has survived perhaps because it gives a survival benefit to believers. Nagraj G. Huilgol Mumbai, India
The Burden of Japan’s Past Hideaki Kase gives voice to the revival of Japanese militarism (“The Use and Abuse of the Past,” April 2). Does NEWSWEEK promote such inhumane ideas? It is internationally accepted that evil shall be condemned no matter how long it remains hidden or buried. While Germany has shown determination and courage by facing the atrocities it perpetrated 60 years ago and by repeatedly apologizing to the world whenever the issue is raised, Japan has systematically undertaken steps to erase its sins. Kase, like so many conservative Japanese, chooses to deny the existence of such facts. After 60 years, the issue of “comfort women” has still not been fully addressed or compensated for. Kase manipulates the fact that there were some volunteer prostitutes—Japanese women—by including women from other countries who were forced into sexual slavery. His article sends a familiar message: a “normal nation” rebuilds its armed forces—the first step toward reviving imperialism. To deny the existence of the Nanking Massacre and comfort women is to justify Japan’s past, and to refuse to apologize for those incidents is to intend to renew imperialism. We are disturbed not only by the ridiculous claims in this article but also by NEWSWEEK’s support in publishing it. Graceia Lai Director, Women’s Rescue Foundation Taipei, Taiwan
NEWSWEEK may not endorse the views of its columnists, but you must know that your magazine reflects your values and influences your readers’ views. You must have a moral bottom line, which in my opinion is to respect the people you serve and the things you write about. Ben Niu via internet
Though I’ve become numb to Japanese politicians’ denying their country’s past atrocities, I was simply flabbergasted to see such rhetoric repeated by Japanese historian Hideaki Kase, who contributed to your world view column. His fabrication of truth was evident in his assertion that military brothels set up by Japan were “commercial establishments,” meaning that they were private ventures with no involvement of government. In 1992, the South Korean Foreign Ministry issued a report on Korean women who were forced into sex slavery and cited Japanese military documents, including those unearthed from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, delineating the establishment of military brothels in 1937 in China. These documents revealed orders from the Japanese military to local police and colonial government officials in Korea to set up brothels for Japanese soldiers. In the late 1990s Chu Telan, a professor at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, discovered documents describing contacts between the Japanese Army and a Taiwan Development Co. building comfort-women facilities in China. Other documents contain instructions that the Japanese colonial government of Taiwan issued to the company to recruit sex slaves and send them to the facilities, according to a report from Kyodo News Agency. In what may be the most damaging account against Kase’s and the Japanese government’s denial, in 1992 Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki discovered a batch of documents from the Japan Defense Agency’s library that shed light on the Japanese military’s direct role in managing the brothels, including those that showed seals of senior colonial Army officers. The most telling piece of evidence Yoshiaki discovered was a notice from March 4, 1938, written by the adjutant to the chiefs of staff of the North China Area Army and Central China Expeditionary Force. In a July 1938 document, Naosaburo Okabe, chief of staff of Japan’s North China Area Army, expressed his concern over growing anti-Japanese sentiment exacerbated by rapes of local women by Japanese soldiers, stating that establishing facilities for sexual comfort as quickly as possible was important. The list goes on. The 21st Army in Guangzhou, China, directly supervised 850 women. With the gun pointing directly to its head, the Japanese government conducted its own study into its past after Yoshiaki’s fact-finding mission and acknowledged its involvement in military brothels. Initially (in July 1992), the Japanese government disclosed 127 documents that clearly indicated the military’s involvement with the projects to build brothels for soldiers and recruit sex slaves. Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Koichi released a statement on July 6, 1992, that the investigation confirmed that there was government involvement and that women forced into this atrocity suffered indescribable pain and suffering. A second investigation revealed that recruiters of sex slaves intimidated these women to be recruited against their will. Do these accounts, provided courtesy of Kase’s own government, describe what he terms “commercial establishments”? Despite the mountain of evidence that lies right before their eyes, Kase and his government continue to deny the country’s colonial past. Kyu-Jin Lim Bucheonsi, Republic Of Korea
