Has anyone had success in treating Alzheimer's with EFT?

Thank you

Caroline

If this request is about a LO, you have my deepest sympathy My mother had early onset dementia, different from Alzheimers to start with but very similar to late stage Alzheimers in the end, she was 60 when she died last year, so it was very harrowing for us all.  Yes I used EFT with her, it helped her to be calm when she got distressed.  She was not cured however but EFT helped me cope with her condition, ease her distress and my grief and terror as I lost her bit by bit.  Sorry I haven't a miracle cure story, I really wish I did, but EFT can still help our LO's when seriously ill and dying and us!.

I was speaking to a client today about using EFT to help his mother with the fear of transferring from her wheelchair to her bed.  There are so many ways it can be used to make difficult conditions easier.

Here are some articles from emofree about EFT and alzheimers

http://www.emofree.com/articles/alzheimer.htm

http://www.emofree.com/articles/Alzheimer-remembers-husband.htm

http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/dementia.htm

Gill

Hi Caroline, 

I have not treated Alzheimer's Disease with EFT, but I am interested in the work of Doctor R.G. Hamer, founder of German New Medicine, who has an interesting viewpoint on Alzheimer's Disease. He believes that Alzheimer's is a disruption of memory brought on by a separation conflict. In children, this manifests as ADD. This is a sort of survival mechanism, as it helps humans to cope with the emotional distress (ie, it is better to forget, rather than to be plagued by those feelings of separation).

 You can read the whole article here (it is mostly about skin conditions, but there is a short part on Alzheimer's towards the end): 

www.germannewmedicine.ca/documents/Skin%20Diseases.pdf

Obviously, if this is relevant to the person you wish to treat, you can begin your EFT work by investigating any traumas which resulted in feelings of separation and isolation. 

 Chim

Thanks for sharing this.  It absolutely makes sense.  I have had to do some tapping on this before I typed back but my mothers father died when she was a baby, and it was when her dementia really progressed she said for the first time to my grandad 'You are not my real dad, I don't want you, get out'  She was 6 weeks when her dad died and my gran would never speak about her dad.

My mum bottled everything up, she never showed anger.  Then she got married and my dad developed mental illness and she lost him too. When my sister comitted suicide, she literally disappeared overnight, any vestige of her 'personality' disappeared.  It was the ultimate blocking out of pain!  I am not sure I blame her.

Given that the condition is genetic, I am so encouraged by this:)  All my tapping on all my stuff means I will have no need to disassociate in this way!

Thanks so much for sharing this and for your research.

Hugs

Gill

Gill, Chim,

Based on the above, do you think that people who tend to develop alzheimer's are the people who have had more stress in their lives, or is it to do with the way they tend to deal with stressful events (eg blocking them out). Is there any research on alzheimer's re: early stress, and re: coping mechanisms?

In a related idea, I know a lovely old lady who people say is forgetting things a lot and can't hold a conversation without repeating her questions every few moments. But when I speak with her, I stay very focused on her, I listen carefully to her words, and I guess I do surrogate energy work every second (feeling feelings in my body based on the energy she exudes, and trying to release these feelings, through stretching, burping, etc). I find she is entirely focused, clear and understanding. Similarly with an elderly man I knew (he has passed away), people said he had dementia, he took his medications many times over (if he could get to them), and he was entirely unfocused, mixed up who people were, and didn't know anything that was going on. But when i spoke with him, he knew who I was although I only rarely saw him, his conversations were lucid and his answers clear and to the point (unless he couldn't remember something, but then he knew he couldn't remember, and he was OK with that). He would tell me all his cute tricks for how he would trick his carers, or how to carry hot drinks without spilling them or get hold of the food he enjoyed)(And when I set off his smoke alarm by setting his microwave to an hour instead of a minute, he insisted on telling the carers it was him, so that I wouldn't be embarrassed. But I insisted on telling the truth because otherwise they might not let him keep using the microwave). Other than these two people, I have little experience with people with old-age related mind difficulties. I wonder if others have experience with whether people's response within dementia is at all related to how they are being related to?

 No worries, Gill, I'm glad it helped, and most of all, has encouraged you :-) 

 Rachel

My mothers dementia wasn't alzheimers, it was a specific type.  My 'idea' is that we have family traits.  As I mentioned in my family, genetic dementia and mental illness (what a lovely package) In my husbands family it is Parkinsons and cancer.  In another it might be asthma etc.

Although there does seem to be some evidence to suggest different emotions are behind different conditions, you can sometimes take a fairly good stab at working out the appropriate issue depending on where in the body it is, but thats largely due to my kinesiology training and understanding of the relation of the organs to the meridians and what the meridians relate to.

But I'd like to comment on your feeling about how people react to how they are related to.  In dementia and mental illness that is the absolute key factor.

I have an article in the pipeline for Garys newsletter about using EFT for myself to allow it to be possible to be with my mother, as she used to run away from me, and only me, but it was because I was so angry and scared and she picked that up from me.

Dementia patients, and people with mental illness know when someone doesn't feel comfortable and safe and will react accordingly.

Its a bit like children and animals, they sense the goodness in people.  I would take the above as a huge testament to your caring character.

I did fall in love with so many of the people in my mothers nursing home and we would have such a laugh.  It was easier for me to feel comfortable with them because they weren't pulverising my heart!:)  I could write a book about the funny stories I had visiting my mum in her nursing home and its lovely to feel, with the help of EFT, I can look back on it all as a special time in our life, where my mum was safe and cared for while she opted out of life.  In fact it was tapping on that fact, my anger that she could opt out and left me to deal with all the pain, as well as many other strong feelings.  The end of this story is beyond awesome but I will spoil it, it will be printed one day, he promised me:)

Gill

 Hi Rachel,

I haven't read any scientific research on Alzheimer's, but German New Medicine takes the view that all humans react in predictable ways to stressful situations. The catch, obviously, lies in a person's interpretation of what is stressful. So someone who doesn't view a loved one leaving as a conflict (which is quite rare, I presume), would not respond by trying to block out their memory. 

However, if one were to view a certain event as a separation conflict (eg: even something such as your pet slug dying), it would lead to the same predictable biological responses. 

So I guess the role of EFT, in this way of thinking, is to neutralise shocking events so that they no longer represent a conflict to your system. 

I hope this has somewhat answered your question. 

Hello, I'm treating a 72 years old man with Alzheimer's. We started 3 months ago. He was involved in healing before, so he is very interested in the process and took to it. EFT has proven a great help to deal with crisis (real or imagined) both for him and his wife who is caring from him, and his speech is usually better after a little tapping, whatever the topic. It's still quite the early stage. He recognizes people, but has difficulties with speech, coordination, and of course short and long term memory and easily gets confused. He also has quite a few hallucinations.

They tap several times daily, he even taps on his own out of rounds I wrote down for him. He had trouble remembering the points around the eyes for a while, but seems to remember them now, even though he doesn't always follow the order when we do it together. 

I read about GNM and found this very helpful (Thank you Chim). I also think that Alzheimer's might be "a convenient way" to protect oneself from painful memory. I know of a few of these painful memories, but haven't found how to bring them up properly to deal with them. 2 days ago, he made a very big deal of going and visit his wife's parents' grave. Digging a little bit, we found out that just after the death of his father in law (over 25 years ago), they had a family crisis with "was the beginning of all our troubles", according to his wife. She even added : "it was so painful to him that he forgot all about it". After that session, she tried to remind him of the event, but he got "bored" of the conversation and left the room. He was never able to express his feelings, even at his best times. So it's even more complex now. He just covers up and claims all is fine.

I'm looking for ideas to get him to get in touch with his feelings regarding these painful memories, so we can "sort them out". Who knows, that might even slow down/reverse Alzheimer's progression? Has naybody worked on this?

Many thank for any suggestions. 

Christine

 

Christine:

I'm looking for ideas to get him to get in touch with his feelings regarding these painful memories, so we can "sort them out". Who knows, that might even slow down/reverse Alzheimer's progression? Has naybody worked on this?

 

 

Hi Christine,

I haven't treated Alzheimer's myself.  But I have treated many clients whose nervous system was particularly challenged, who had blocked out feelings, or who were on strong medication and could not access their feelings. What I do is write down about 20 different scenarios I imagine may be a root cause, I do this on about 20 corresponding pieces of paper, fold them up, and then use them for muscle-testing.  Whatever the muscle goes weak on is relevant, and we just tap on it for a few rounds, then do another muscle-test (I like retesting at the next session) to see if it has cleared.  If not, we re-tap.  Once an issue has cleared, I create more statements on papers and test for those.

If you can do a muscle-test, maybe you can try this. 

Hi, Suzanne, thanks for the prompt answer. Unfortunately, the couple are in France... and I'm in Ireland. I can do many things through Skype, but muscle testing would prove a bit complex. I like the idea of writing the various scenarios, though; maybe with the wife's help, seeing the scenarios written could trigger him? I'll try that. 

Many thanks.

Christine

 

Follow-up on that case, that might bring ideas to others. 

I know this is a bit mad to try and help with Alzheimer's over skype. I tried to get a practitioner closer to their home, but it didn't work out, and they seem to trust only me at this stage. So I have no real choice. Plus his wife is very supportive, and does follow-up and ensure physical presence on the other end.

Having said that, I wanted to thank Suzane for her suggestions. It made me realise I might be blocking possibilitites by assuming it was too late to get to specific events. Maybe that's why the following happened. I'm very aware it's only one session, but it does open doors, at least to me.

Yesterday, he was in a very good mood to begin with, "almost normal" as his wife put it. His speech and analytical skills were nearly perfect all along, except towards the end (exhaustion I guess after nearly 1 hour intense tapping). As he was thanking me profusely to begin with, on nothing specific, he started to rave about the fact that you need to help people. He has always had an obsession about helping, and over the past months, it's become more and more difficult to live with, since he constantly wants to help anybody for anything, and is not able for it. It sounds nice, but on the day to day, it can be difficult to deal with for his wife.

I took the opportunity to try and get to the root of that issue. He tapped various points, not necessary in order to begin with, but as I was tapping round from TH to UA again and again, he eventually more or less followed my tapping. Thank skype and webcams! No KC. 

I got him talking about why he thought helping was that important, who told him that, any childhood reference, etc... He was thinking and tapping, and then the skype connection went down... :-(

When the connection came back up, though, "things had happened". He "suddenly remembered" a biggie that explained the whole story. Even his wife of 49 years had never heard of that. We tapped for the terror and the guilt related to the event (he admitted to very little to begin with, but eventually a bit more).

This happens often with EFT, but I didn't expect it in that specific case, and if we can get that, who knows how far it can go? We'll obviously need to see in time what is the effect of this coming out. You have to remember also that we're lucky to be in the very early stages of the disease.

Another biggie came out last week as he over reacted on something and his wife eventually came up with the explanation, with a little guidance (what could this remind him of, etc...). But if I know it's a biggie and so does his wife, we couldn't get him to remember any of it. That triggered my call for ideas. Now I might revisit it at the next session, see where we can go. 

Thank you again for your suggestion, Suzanne it did get me back on track! 

 All the best, Suzane. 

Christine

Hi Christine,

That sounds awesome! And with Skype too, wow! 

Exactly what I thought, But I'm trying to keep my head on my shoulders! It's only one session.

The bonus is, John and Mary (not their real names) had an appointment with the neurolosgist today. I prepared Mary for it  yesterday (anxiety, fear of not finding her words, fear of the hospital... collapsed all from 10-8 to 0) and she tapped on her own then to continue the preparation. I had a follow-up call after the appointment. As it turned out, John says Mary talked like a doctor, which she says she didn't realise, even though she did realise that she found her words very easily. The neurologist was apparently quite moody to begin with, but very smily when they left and... now he wants to know more about EFT! 

Note, at the end of today's call (about 30 minutes, including a little bit of follow-up tapping on yesterday's biggie), John started to be slightly incoherent. But I guess the day had been stressful enough, that's to be expected at this stage.

To be continued!