Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

Yes, Walter. Peace to you--my friend.
(and thanks, Swimpy, for saying so well what I and I'm sure many are feeling).

Thanks, swimpy and JL.

I'm reading along too, sad to hear about the hairline breaks, and glad that she has a high pain threshold.
Your dealing with all this has taken a long time, Walter, and I admire your stamina. Don't feel odd about getting used to it..

I doubt that there's one extra thing you could do to make your mother's life better or meaningful for her at this stage of her life, Walter. I am in awe of your devotion and your compassion. You're pretty amazing, really.

I do know that my 'professional acting' - and I'm really good with it - is a kind of protective mechanism.

It's the motivation & the performance of the act that count, Walter.

Well, I'm not very satisfied with the "legal battle" re my aunt which is still "in the progress to be settled" ...

This thread's been quiet for some time. I hope that means that everyone's loved ones are doing well. My mom is doing well physically, but today she didn't know who I was. When I told her she seemed to understand for a while, saying things that would only make sense if she was talking to me. But then she started again to talk about me like I wasn't there. It's very sad. she is also fretting about her retirement home closing down. This is not true but she thinks it is. There was nothing I could say to convince her otherwise.

I don't try in such situations - which happen more or less every day - to convince my mother but just try to answer according to her ... well, what ever, where ever she thinks it's about.

I know this feeling of sadness, Swimpy, quite well.
However, after I could 'handle' that feeling - I was feeling sad that I could handle it.

Sometimes, I take it calmly, can even laugh about about a couple of responses/ideas ... when I'm home.

I'm not visiting my aunt so often (twice a week only), but have a really distance to her: she's nearly continuously crying and whining - but then suddenly asks very clearly about how mother is, if she has broken any bones newly ... and that I have to buy this and that.


But both seem to feel not too bad in the home - quite well, actually.

Hoping, that your mother, Swimpy, is feeling comfortable at heart, too.

Thanks, Walter. I think she is comfortable if not at peace. Small changes in her routine make her fret.

I need to learn how to cope with this new development. To have my own mother not know who I am, I have to say, set me reeling. Maybe she was just having a bad day. Her eye sight is really failing, but she usually recognizes my voice. We'll just have to see if she is better the next time I see her.

I do hope, Swimpy, that your mother is doing well. And you, too!!!

On last Friday, and over the weekend, I noticed that mother was speaking in a peculiar funny way, as if she was without teeth.
She said on Friday, her her dental prostheses were being cleaned by the nurses. Could be, I'd thought, because usually she wants to do her teeth hygiene herself ..
But when she told me on Sunday, that I now could get the prosthesis from the dentist's ...

She had had all her teeth, hadn't complained about tooth pain, the nurses told me.
But on Monday, they found her lower prosthesis, under the bed, broken.

Her dentist, where she was taken immediately, discovered that at least six rotten tooth roots have to be removed. (Her different kind of speaking was noticed by the nurses as well as by her physical therapist - all looked at first, if the teeth were where they should be ...)

The dentist consulted mother's GP and internist: it has to be done stationary in the hospital (usually, such is done ambulant at the dentist's practise, like with my aunt), because of mother's generally bad heart etc situation.

So, she'll see the dental surgeon tomorrow and will get a date for the operation then. (And I had and have to do a lot more additionally paperwork.)

I have and will READILY take care of old people. I'll clean the dirtiest messes. don't ask me why. It is a responsibility where you will find surprising volunteers.

Good for you, Amigo. Your willingness is a spiritual capacity if you ask me.

As some perhaps remember, mother has a high bed rails since she left the hospital last summer, to prevent that she leaves the bed without help. (She 'forgets' that she can't walk properly.)

She never complained about it, but it's still legally a "deprivation of liberty".
That can be done without the approval of the custodianship court only in hospitals - it's done there as a "medical reason" - not e.g. in homes.
I had informed the judical officer about that - she thought it to be in a 'grey zone' ..

Now, however, I have to make the year's report. And there I'm asked explicitly, if I'd ordered acts of "deprivation of live".
- I could just leave that blanc - but since the court already knows about it .. .
- I could say 'yes' - but since I don't have a signed and written approval by a judge ...

So I asked the GP and the psychiatrist for medical certificates and apply for an according ruling by the court.

(If interested, the law is here, Section 1906 [ages ago that I've studied such].)


When I spoke with the GP, he talked about mother's general, medical situation as well.
Mother is not only underweight but, more seriously, not drinking enough - even not with "the help" of the nurses.
He thinks - and this opinion was later shared by the psychiatrist - giving her fluid "artificially" (she gets extra calories/vitamins/minerals etc in her yoghurt, because otherwise she wouldn't take such: she's too thick, she says) wouldn't be very helpful now because it had to be done against her will ...

Something, the judical officer told me this morning, too: that mother will be 90 this year, has survived a couple of strokes, has had some major operations lately ...

All that is something I'm totally aware of. I think that I can handle the situation(s) a lot better than two years ago or even last year.
But I'm the son, not a professional custodian who has got some 80 strangers to look at.

(But of course, I do know how to work professionally and try to be even better - after all, I've taught that at university )

Oh, Walter.

Well, as you well know, your mother has hurt herself getting out of bed on her own, or am I wrong? (long history here - perhaps she just made herself vulnerable in many ways). I speak as someone whose mother was picked up by the local airport (LAX) police.

Years later, I think that she had the visceral savvy to take her purse.

Me, now, in 2010, I'd just say, yes, I did and why. (And didn't the doctors agree with you?)
But I remember the angst (not the same as yours exactly) of dealing with all this.
And I'm not up to date on your legal issues.

It's no problem to get this ruling - mother hurt herself badly (and severely) three times during the last six months.

It's just ... well, I ask the judge to reduce her already limited personal freedoms to a teeny minimum.

I really didn't want that black on white, with the court's seal on it.

Ah, so yours are the opposite concerns of what I surmised, from my own concerns long ago, years before my mother did die.
The court's seal on it is easily destroyed by fire or trash and when it was there, was only about words.

I know you are interested in history.
recorded history isn't everything.

Maybe you could write some comments..

The teeth operation will be next Wednesday. I could arrange that the anaesthetist looks at her just before the oepration starts (and not two days before, as it is usually done) - it's me who has to sign the papers and answer the questions, and mother doesn't have to be transported twice within such a short period.

In the home, I've signed that I don't want any unnecessary life-extending treatments.

Mother has a weight of only 36.5 kilo (80.5 lb), down from 50.3 kg (111 lb) in March last year. - At the best, she drinks 0.8 litre ( 0.21 gallon) per day ...

Mother seems to be very comfortable in "her world" now.

I hope that it stays that way until she'll find her final peace. Whenever that might be.

Amen to that, Walter.