Dementia and Alzheimer

According to Ken Fish, praying for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia involves understanding the potential root causes and applying appropriate prayer techniques. He explains that while Alzheimer’s and dementia present similarly, they are distinct conditions: dementia is related to neurotransmitter imbalances, while Alzheimer’s involves physical degradation of brain tissue.

When praying for someone with either condition, Ken Fish suggests that one of three things are usually going on.

• They have done something they wish to forget: This is often related to guilt, remorse, or shame. This falls under the category of sin sickness where the individual is culpable and repentance is needed.
• Something was done to them: This is an inner healing issue where a person has been hurt or wounded by the actions of others. Examples include bullying, being a prisoner of war, and experiencing trauma. This type of issue is categorized as sickness of the emotions, where the focus is on addressing emotional and psychological wounds.
• They observed something traumatic: Even if nothing was directly done to the person, witnessing traumatic events can still have a profound impact, such as a child witnessing abuse5. This also falls under the category of sickness of the emotions because it involves the person being impacted by something that has happened to others.

To effectively pray for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia, one must first identify which of these three scenarios is most likely. This can be done by asking the person, or if they are unable, by asking their family and friends.

Once the likely root cause is identified, the appropriate prayer technique can be applied. If the issue is a sin sickness, then prayer for repentance and forgiveness is needed. If it is a sickness of the emotions resulting from something done to them or something observed, then inner healing is needed. In the case of inner healing, Ken Fish uses a metaphor of summoning the person out of a fog, where the individual has lost their sense of orientation, by calling them back.

Ken Fish recounts a specific example of praying for a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s in New Jersey. He first spoke with the woman’s children to gather some information about her past. He then prayed, being led by the spirit to the best of his understanding, and then he called her out of the “fog”. After the prayer, she was able to recognize her children and have a coherent conversation. After this he prayed for her physical healing. He prays for a rebalancing of the body chemistry for dementia and for a miracle for restoration of brain tissue for Alzheimer’s.

Ken Fish stresses that inner healing prayer often needs time and patience to be effective and should not be rushed. In the case of the woman with Alzheimer’s, he prayed with her for about 20 minutes.

• Title: Healing of Past Hurts
• Speaker: Ken Fish
• Start time: 17:11
• End time: 26:15

Orbis Ministries – Link to Ken Fish’s Ministry material.