er that those jobs have been replaced by computers and electronic machines so she’d have to find something else for “employment.” When asking her what she thought she might be good at and enjoy, she seemed rather concerned in answering me “I have been so busy focusing on my life and doing my day-to-day stuff, I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on around me or what’s even out there.” TMy mother has Alzheimer’s. She’s been in a nursing facility since February of 2005, and she’s more or less bed ridden. One of the many negative effects of Alzheimer’s is rapid memory loss to the point family members’ names are forgotten and some members get forgotten altogether. Another symptom is life regression—that is where the person mentally and emotionally backtracks from their current age back to birth. The average person afflicted with Alzheimer’s has a life expectancy of roughly seven years from the time of initial diagnosis. Luckily, our family still has some time to share with mom, but the inevitable is always looming. It’s truly a gut-wrenching experience for both the patient and loved ones. If I were to guess as to where my mom is in her regression, I’d estimate her to be somewhere in the neighborhood of her early twenties to late teens. She’s 78 years old so you can imagine the transgression and what it means.

Early in my mother’s career she worked for the telephone company as a switchboard operator. Today, as we know, phone calls are connected electronically with no human intervention required. In my mom’s mind, she “works” at the nursing facility, but she’s very interested in finding another job. One of the recommendations experts give when interacting with an Alzheimer’s patient is to play along with them wherever they are in their own little world. They don’t know any better so correcting them only creates tension and frustrates both parties. My mom asked me if I thought she could go back to working for the telephone company as a switchboard operator, and I informed her that those jobs have been replaced by computers and electronic machines so she’d have to find something else for “employment.” When asking her what she thought she might be good at and enjoy, she seemed rather concerned in answering me “I have been so busy focusing on my life and doing my day-to-day stuff, I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on around me or what’s even out there.” T

rth. The average person afflicted with Alzheimer’s has a life expectancy of roughly seven years from the time of initial diagnosis. Luckily, our family still has some time to share with mom, but the inevitable is always looming. It’s truly a gut-wrenching experience for both the patient and loved ones. If I were to guess as to where my mom is in her regression, I’d estimate her to be somewhere in the neighborhood of her early twenties to late teens. She’s 78 years old so you can imagine the transgression and what it means.

Early in my mother’s career she worked for the telephone company as a switchboard operator. Today, as we know, phone calls are connected electronically with no human intervention required. In my mom’s mind, she “works” at the nursing facility, but she’s very interested in finding another job. One of the recommendations experts give when interacting with an Alzheimer’s patient is to play along with them wherever they are in their own little world. They don’t know any better so correcting them only creates tension and frustrates both parties. My mom asked me if I thought she could go back to working for the telephone company as a switchboard operator, and I informed her that those jobs have been replaced by computers and electronic machines so she’d have to find something else for “employment.” When asking her what she thought she might be good at and enjoy, she seemed rather concerned in answering me “I have been so busy focusing on my life and doing my day-to-day stuff, I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on around me or what’s even out there.” T

where in the neighborhood of her early twenties to late teens. She’s 78 years old so you can imagine the transgression and what it means.

Early in my mother’s career she worked for the telephone company as a switchboard operator. Today, as we know, phone calls are connected electronically with no human intervention required. In my mom’s mind, she “works” at the nursing facility, but she’s very interested in finding another job. One of the recommendations experts give when interacting with an Alzheimer’s patient is to play along with them wherever they are in their own little world. They don’t know any better so correcting them only creates tension and frustrates both parties. My mom asked me if I thought she could go back to working for the telephone company as a switchboard operator, and I informed her that those jobs have been replaced by computers and electronic machines so she’d have to find something else for “employment.” When asking her what she thought she might be good at and enjoy, she seemed rather concerned in answering me “I have been so busy focusing on my life and doing my day-to-day stuff, I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on around me or what’s even out there.” T

sted in finding another job. One of the recommendations experts give when interacting with an Alzheimer’s patient is to play along with them wherever they are in their own little world. They don’t know any better so correcting them only creates tension and frustrates both parties. My mom asked me if I thought she could go back to working for the telephone company as a switchboard operator, and I informed her that those jobs have been replaced by computers and electronic machines so she’d have to find something else for “employment.” When asking her what she thought she might be good at and enjoy, she seemed rather concerned in answering me “I have been so busy focusing on my life and doing my day-to-day stuff, I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on around me or what’s even out there.” Ter that those jobs have been replaced by computers and electronic machines so she’d have to find something else for “employment.” When asking her what she thought she might be good at and enjoy, she seemed rather concerned in answering me “I have been so busy focusing on my life and doing my day-to-day stuff, I haven’t paid attention to what’s going on around me or what’s even out there.” That’s when it clicked for me.

Many of us that don’t have any debilitating diseases (yet) do the very same thing mom spoke of even though she didn’t realize she was delivering an “ah ha!” moment for me. We all get caught up in our day-to-day lives to the point we don’t look around to see what’s going on and truly pay attention. I believe many companies suffer in an analysis paralysis conundrum. When the consequences begin to seriously impact the organization, it’s often too late to make a change because the downward spiral has picked up too much momentum to reverse course. Alzheimer’s works much the same way, but there is only hope for a cure—nothing in terms of a bonafide cure yet. There is a “cure” for the business community, and it’s a very simple one—pay attention! I mean really pay attention to the world around you and readily implement changes before the “disease” hits instead of waiting and reacting. Pro-activity prevents obsolescence.

I know my mom fully understood technology advances before Alzheimer’s started to severely restrain her, but she delivered a nice reminder to me to pay attention to my surroundings in a very innocent way during our time together tonight. Thanks mom.