Alzheimer’s and Friends: The Value of One

Lady-Links is a very unique concept.  It is a partnership of people dedicated to enriching the life of one person, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia,  helping her to maintain important links in her life.

When most people hear of our model of friendship care visits, they embrace the idea and wish that such a partnership existed for their loved one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, some, when learning about Lady-Links, question why so many of us put so much effort into just one person’s life.

To them, unless we are helping multitudes of people, we are misguided and our time could be put to much greater use.  They don’t see the value of helping just one.

I’m glad our Lord doesn’t look at it that way.  Listen to some of these familiar stories from the Bible:

• God sent a whale to swallow one man to redirect his path.
• God sent ravens to feed one man to encourage and strengthen him.
• Jesus spoke to one woman at the well to show her the way.
• Jesus stopped in the middle of a crowd to heal one woman when He felt her touch the hem of His garment.
• The Holy Spirit sent Philip to explain the Scriptures to one man, an Ethiopian who was out on a desert road.

A favorite Bible story of mine involving one person is about one paralyzed man who was helped by four of his friends.  Perhaps we could call them his group of Lady-Links.  It is found in Mark 2 and tells of four friends who placed their paralyzed friend on a pallet and carried him to see Jesus.  Here’s what was involved:

• Plan – Carry him to wherever Jesus was
• Prepare – Had a pallet
• Purpose – Make their friend better
• Persevere – When they couldn’t get in the door of the house, they went to the roof, dug through it and lowered their friend down
• Partnership – It was a coordinated effort by a group of friends to help just one person
• Precious Process – Mark 2:5 and 11 “And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven..I say to you, rise, take up your pallet, and go home.’ ” Look at the word “their” in verse 5.  It was the faith of the friends that made the difference in the life of one person.

Lady-Links believe that their visits are making a difference in the life of their friend.

She smiles more, looks people in the eye more, communicates more, sings more, dances more, and engages in life more compared to the time before our visits began.

 

 

To us, all the time spent in  planning, preparing, determining a purpose for each visit, and persevering when things don’t go as we thought they would have formed us into a strong partnership of friends  who view our time with our friend as a precious process enriching her life and ours.

We are doing all of this for one friend because we place value on her life and want to help her enjoy a quality of life for as long as possible in spite of a progressive neurological disease for which there is no cure.   Is helping “just one” a worthy cause?  Absolutely!

 

We hope that you will duplicate our Lady-Links model of friendship visits for one of your friends or loved ones who suffers with any type of dementia.  They will be blessed and so will you.