I think every­one knows their own Miss Mary. She's so full of like and al­ways knows the lat­est bac­cha­nal or juicy piece of gos­sip. As we Trinida­di­ans say, “The pot is al­ways bub­bling.” From pelau, to chick­en foot souse, to Christ­mas time when the ham, pastelles and fruit cake start mak­ing an ap­pear­ance.

Every Sat­ur­day two very good friends Pam and Miss Mary would meet for what they like to call 'girl time.' Apart from be­ing very good friends, their chil­dren grew up to­geth­er and their hus­bands al­so be­came very close. This is the per­fect sto­ry of per­sons that were once strangers be­com­ing tight-knit enough to be fam­i­ly.

One day, Pam gets a call from Miss Mary say­ing that she was di­ag­nosed with ear­ly De­men­tia. This somber mood puts the ladies in a dif­fer­ent frame of mind. Not know­ing ful­ly what the fu­ture holds for Miss Mary was a fright­en­ing thought. Would the De­men­tia put an end to this friend­ship? Would Miss Mary still be able to per­form her dai­ly func­tions? Will Miss Mary for­get Pam and the beau­ti­ful friend­ship they share?

The Sat­ur­day rou­tines con­tin­ued for about two months af­ter. Then, the calls be­gan. Pam got the call from Miss Mary's daugh­ter, June say­ing that she's not feel­ing well to­day. This con­tin­ued for six con­sec­u­tive Sat­ur­days.

Not on­ly was Miss Mary bat­tling with her ear­ly De­men­tia, but Pam her­self was faced with a lev­el of lone­li­ness; her chil­dren be­came very con­cerned for the well be­ing of both ladies. For­tu­nate­ly, the chil­dren were al­so very close and came up with a great so­lu­tion- or­gan­is­ing for both women to meet. The first Sat­ur­day went very well and once again, the house was filled with laugh­ter, good times and good mem­o­ries. How­ev­er, Miss Mary was on med­ica­tion that made her a bit drowsy mak­ing the time spent to­geth­er short­er than usu­al. Pam want­ed to sup­port her friend so, she stayed with her while she slept for two hours. When she got up, the ladies were at it again.

Pam took the time to learn about De­men­tia and what should be ex­pect­ed. She was de­ter­mined that no mat­ter what, she was not go­ing to lose her friend­ship or let Miss Mary go through this alone.

A few years went by and one un­for­tu­nate night, Pam fell and dam­aged her hip. Pam need­ed surgery to cor­rect the in­jury and was then sub­ject­ed to ther­a­py which helped, but it did not al­low for full mo­bil­i­ty.

But again, the chil­dren stepped in and came up with an­oth­er bril­liant idea. They de­cid­ed that the roles were re­versed and Miss Mary would now go to see Pam. The chil­dren took care of the cook­ing, while the ladies sat in the porch. Some­times they spoke and oth­er times they just sat in si­lence and en­joyed each oth­er's com­pa­ny.

The com­fort, to­geth­er­ness and the bond that was forged from so many years ago, al­lows for words to some­times go un­spo­ken.

Alzheimer's and De­men­tia are still a mys­tery in many ways. This is why the two sim­i­lar dis­eases are of­ten mixed up in every­day con­ver­sa­tion and un­der­stand­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Ag­ing (NIA), De­men­tia is a brain dis­or­der that af­fects com­mu­ni­ca­tion and per­for­mance of dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties. Alzheimer's dis­ease is a form of de­men­tia that specif­i­cal­ly af­fects parts of the brain that con­trols thought, mem­o­ry and lan­guage.

What is De­men­tia?

De­men­tia is an um­brel­la term for a set of symp­toms in­clud­ing im­paired think­ing and mem­o­ry. It is a term that is of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with the cog­ni­tive de­cline of ag­ing. How­ev­er, is­sues oth­er than Alzheimer's can cause De­men­tia. Oth­er com­mon caus­es of de­men­tia are Hunt­ing­ton's Dis­ease, Parkin­son's Dis­ease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Dis­ease.

What is Alzheimer's Dis­ease?

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ter for Dis­eases Con­trol, Alzheimer's dis­ease is a com­mon cause of de­men­tia re­sult­ing in as many as 50 per­cent to 70 per­cent of all de­men­tia cas­es. In fact, Alzheimer's is a very spe­cif­ic form of de­men­tia.

Symp­toms of Alzheimer's in­clude:

- Im­paired thought

- Im­paired speech

- Con­fu­sion

Doc­tors use a va­ri­ety of screen­ings to de­ter­mine the cause of de­men­tia in­clud­ing blood tests, men­tal sta­tus eval­u­a­tions and brain scans.

How are They Dif­fer­ent?

When a per­son is di­ag­nosed with de­men­tia, they are be­ing di­ag­nosed with a set of symp­toms. This is sim­i­lar to some­one who has a sore throat with an un­known cause. It may be al­ler­gies, strep throat, or a com­mon cold. Sim­i­lar­ly, when some­one has de­men­tia they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms with­out be­ing told what specif­i­cal­ly is caus­ing those symp­toms.

An­oth­er ma­jor dif­fer­ence be­tween the two is that Alzheimer's is not a re­versible dis­ease. It is de­gen­er­a­tive and in­cur­able at this time. Some forms of de­men­tia, such as a drug in­ter­ac­tion or a vi­t­a­min de­fi­cien­cy, are ac­tu­al­ly re­versible or tem­po­rary.

Let me know when you have tried these lit­tle tips… How did the doc­tor's vis­it go?

Send com­ments to email ashamun­gal@gmail.com

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