After years of floundering around, I finally concluded that the only way I would accomplish my caregiver mission was to introduce a systematic routine to our daily life to maintain a stable, relatively constant condition.

The "our" in this equation was my mother, Dotty, the person living with dementia, and me, Bob, the Alzheimer's caregiver.

Prior to the installation of the "patterned" routine I had been fighting a long list of Alzheimer's wars. The list is too long to mention but did include: the early morning negativity, the poop  war, the pee  war, the shower wars and the routine use of the word NO.

For now, lets focus on the importance of the early morning wake up routine.

Years ago, my mother would wake up in an immediate state of confusion and angst. As soon as she woke up she would start saying loudly, Bobby Bobby, where are you?

I could clearly hear the fear, confusion, and worry in her voice.

The fear, confusion, of being alone, or maybe abandoned. The sound of my mother's voice did disturb me, and it then filled me with a feeling of angst.

A feeling of trepidation that our day was getting off to a bad start.

After a while I thought if  I woke up and I didn't know what day, month or year it was, or couldn't remember what I did yesterday, I would probably be confused and scared.

What I am going to describe didn't happen overnight. I had to piece it together until I reached the point where I came to believe I was accomplishing my mission - creating a safe, secure and understandable environment for Dotty.