Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

She is not demanding at all. I'm amazed at how she has kept her spirit of
optimism and gentle, caring nature. When I see her tonight on my way
home from work, I know she'll say "You don't need to be coming here
every day!" She'll compliment a nurse about how painlessly a needle
went in and make little jokes. "Can I get you anything else, Madeline?"
"How about a hundred dollars?"

Thanks, George.

Hoping, all goes fine ...

i dont often read this thread because i get too upset

but i think of you

George--

My thoughts are with you and your mother.

Hold your dominion.

George, I just found this thread. My thoughts and good wishes are with you.

Your mother sounds like a sweetie. Maybe she will be one of the few who seem to slide by the paranoia--there are a few every now and then. One of my friends in Connecticut watched her mother fade away from dementia, retaining her good nature to the very end.

Er, speaking of mental decline....I have been on this thread, I simply thought that George had started a new one.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Been there, George. It does get emotionally exhausting at times.

A hug.

When my late wife went through bouts of paranoia, due to the dementia from her brain cancer, I reminded myself that I should accept her accusations in the most loving spirit--because she deserved it. Like a love gift, as it were. That helped me if not her.

JLN reminded me of a book I once read about a daughter taking care of her mother who was suffering from advanced Alzheimers. Instead of trying to correct her mother's mistakes, she would take the part of whoever her mother thought she was--a long lost niece, a sister, her late husband, friends. It helped her mother and it helped the daughter to realize that her mother's lack of recognition didn't signify a loss of love, it was simply due to the confusing jumble of her mother's memories.

George, I recall that your mother is a woman of deep faith. It's entirely possible that her faith will keep her spirits up and make the coming months/years much harder on you than it is on her.

MIL is "running amok" again:
- she and her partner stay quite often a couple of times for several weeks in her partners huts in the Harz mountains.
And ususally, there she's feeling extremely well .... and after some time extremely bad, going to the doctors.staying at hospital .... all psychosomatic.

Similar this time, but now tey went for two weeks on holidays near the Baltic Sea instead of hospial (that was planned/booked).

And from there they returned last night: MIL "is dying". She's got obstipation.
Of course been to the doctors' there. But they didn't want to send her to hospital...
Neither did her family doctor in her hometown. But gave her some "extremely strong powder". When Mrs. Walter told her that my mother uses that regularily since fve years, that it's rather cheap to get over the counter - she's not talking to us any more.

We are glad about that. [As long as it last and as long as Mrs Walter can stop herself from phoning MIL.]

Walter- My mom, who died at 97, was "dying" since I was a little kid. The slightest discomfort, and according to her, it was the worst plague to befall mankind. I learned to take it with a grain of salt.

In fact, one time she was weeping and wailing, and told me that she wanted to die. I looked at her and said, "Whatever turns you on". Her mood changed instantly, as if I had hit a light switch.

It's a manipulation, and a plea for attention. Please try not to fall into her scenarios.

No, we don't


We certainly know the reasons (four this time) for her behaviour

I was away Thursday through Monday. I taked with Mom about in the
days leading up to it, so she would know I wouldn't be by and would not
take her out for lunch on Sunday. So of course, the folks at the nursing
home are calling my house on Sunday saying my mother has been
waiting for me for an hour. Sigh.

Lesson learned: next time I'm away I'm writing it up in detail and giving
one copy to the nursing desk, tacking another copy to the mini bulletin
board over her bead, and putting a third copy on the night stand.

I think we are going to have to have practices using the phone. She says
she cannot dial out and she seems to have forgotten how to play back
voice messages.

Mental decline and dependency
For whatever reason I haven't received any updates for almost a month. My latest contribution is that Bob is having such severe Holocaust flashbacks (on top of his serious short-term memory loss) that he is now in a locked geriatric ward while they try to figure out a medication. This will take at least a week, and neither of us is happy. It's a grim place and extremely noisy. Bob at least can speak; most of the others just bleat.

The doctor is trying Seraquil. Does anyone know anything about it?I've heard good things about, and am keeping my fingers crossed. It's supposed to damp down the horrors while not deleting the memory. But doctors are sometimes as namby-pamby as anyone - he warned me that there was the danger that a patient on Seraquil had a higher chance of passing away. I interrupted and said "died" which I think surprised him. Anyway, at our age, and with our infirmities, it's the modern dying that has horrors for us, not plain old death.

Mental decline and dependency
I've been told by an eminent (now retired) neurology/psychiatry professor that I shouldn't visit Bob at the same time every day; it just sets him up for a let down when I don't come. But the visiting hours are very limited, so I'll have to skip some visits altogether. I can't do like George and leave it all written down for him because he can't see to read; I have to rely on the "goodness of strangers", i.e. busy nurses. They'll give him the message, but he'll forget and then he'll stew & be even more miserable. It's so awful for him.

But perhaps I can leave a note at the nurses' station for anyone he asks to see. The problem is that he probably won't ask; he has grown very passive.

Tomkitten--

How very distressing. Your bad week certainly puts my bad week in proportion.

Briefly:

You are to upset your husband by not visiting as a rehearsal for not visiting so he won't be upset?

This sounds daft to me--particularly since you are a loving, consistantly visiting wife and visiting hours are limited.

More, later.

Like Tom Kitten and Noddy, I haven't been getting updates--it's good to be back.

This is one of my favorite threads, even with all the sadness, in that the advice is invaluable and the love and caring is inspiring. Maybe most important, at least to me, is the humor. Perhaps that is one reason I loved M A S H.

Hugs to all.

Mental
Thank you, Noddy. You are a kind kind soul, and I welcome that very particularly right now.

As for the visiting, my cousin-the-neurology-etc- professor does have a point. I remember with my mother there were problems with visiting often; on the other hand there were problems with visiting anyway...

Even back then the psychiatrist told me not to develop a pattern in my visiting. I suppose it's a form of tough love?

But I just found out from another visitor that family members are treated more casually and are much less restricted, so I can sort of stagger my visits; that should be a good compromise. Anyway, I'll be talking with social workers and so forth next week, and we'll have to take it from there.