Molly Bell Deaton said it has made “the biggest difference” as her mother’s carer.
A woman has created a ‘business card’ for her mum with Alzheimer’s to help people understand her diagnosis.
Patti Bell, 65, was first diagnosed with the disease in 2021 but was showing early signs in her mid 50s. Patti’s young looks meant that people were confused when interacting with her.
So daughter Molly Bell Deaton, 43, devised the idea of an informative ‘business card’. The small card has Patti’s name on the front and on the back a little bio which explains the situation.
Molly and her family can discreetly hand the card to the person that interacting with them – without Patti noticing – which alleviates any confusion and anxiety.
Molly, who works as an operations manager in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, said: “The card has made the biggest difference as a care giver. When we would take my mum out, people didn’t understand what was going on. They were confused because she looks so young and so healthy.
“Normally someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia if they’re older, people can assume it is the case.”
Molly came up with the idea after her mum Patti struggled to communicate with staff at a restaurant during a Mother’s Day dinner in 2019.
She said: “We all went out to a restaurant to celebrate and that experience was pivotal. Her difficultly ordering and communicating with the staff at the restaurant and her overall heightened anxiety being in public put me on a mission to find something that identified Alzheimer’s to others.”
Molly didn’t find anything out there so she created a card that she could hand out to people her mum interacted with.
She said: “It just helps alleviate the stress that we are feeling when we want to communicate what is going on without doing that in front of her. There isn’t anything that identifies Alzheimer’s like other diagnoses so we found this the most helpful.”
