Becky Tiller & Darrelle Volwiler
NAWBO members Becky Tiller, Tiller Care Strategies, and Darrelle Volwiler, Volwiler Counseling, were featured in the Spokesman Review for their work with the Alzheimer’s Association Inland Northwest Chapter.
The article centers around a Spokane woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, her struggle, her openness about the disease, and how she found help through the Alzheimer’s Association Inland Northwest Chapter, specifically through Tiller and Volwiler.
The group divides in two: care providers in one room, those with memory loss in another.
“We’re in rooms side-by-side,” said Becky Tiller, facilitator of the memory-loss group. “We’ll hear them laughing, and they’ll hear us laughing. It’s refreshing.”
The groups tackle not-so-funny topics, too.
During a discussion of death one day, Tiller – who has led Alzheimer’s support groups since 1987 – asked: “Would you wish for death over dementia?”
Initially, they wished for death. “But now, no,” Tiller said.
In the care-provider room, facilitated by psychologist Darrelle Volwiler, spouses speak candidly about the stress, which has the potential to kill them long before the disease kills their loved ones.
The candor didn’t always exist in previous generations. Early-stage Alzheimer’s folks were sometimes placed in mental institutions or hidden away in homes, locked in by their family’s shame and worry.
“They aren’t locked away,” Tiller said of the people in her group. “People aren’t ashamed of them. It’s forcing people to see the person, not the disease.”