Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

We all are a rather good team - including the nurses :wink:

Walter--

What will Short Term Care involve--besides a bit more well-earned private time for you and Mrs. W?

Well, it's more or less the very same as being in the 'normal' senior's residential home - just smaller rooms, no private furnishure etc.

It is (in this case) in the same building complex (they've got the normal nursing home, te short term care, a day car and the the ambulant care service there).

The advantage is that mother will have people to talk with, activities, service, ...

It's not really that we'll have a lot more spare time (at least in the first time): I still have to look at the house, visit mother, my aunt ...

But it's exactly how i "planned" it - the first step for her (and us) towards leaving home ...

However, my sister told Mrs Walter on the phone that mother phoned her (my sister) after the nurse and I had left: she told her that she had shoown us what she still could do ...

Tomorrow will be a quite active day ...

Walter- Sounds good. That is what I did with my mom. I had her move into an assisted living facility "temporarily", to determine whether she needed congregate care, and whether she adapted to it. She did.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
The services you describe sound somewhat like our retirement community, except that here the majority of units are Independent Living. However, over the years, the Assisted Living services expanded to take care of people who needed increasing degrees of help but wanted to stay in their own units. The original setup was a wing of specific Assisted Living apartments, and there were certain restrictions, like having to take all meals in the AL dining room.

Now we can have AL services on all levels in our own original apartments, short of the need for a complete and permanent nursing home placement. Bob went from Independent Living almost directly to the nursing home; I did arrange for AL services, (but the sitter problem I had to handle separately) but his final descent was too precipitous for us to take much advantage of them. He might have had a longer period of AL services if I hadn't been there to look after him at home, but I don't know. Some things, like forgetting his pills, wouldn't necessarily have been obvious to anyone. However, sooner or later someone would have taken notice of his behavior, and followed up accordingly.

I'm thankful beyond words that I was able to look after him as long as I did, and equally thankful that I can visit him so freely. I hope your mother's arrangement will permit you to visit whenever you want for as long as you want. Difficult though your situation is, that freedom is important to you

Thank god she didn't hurt herself, Walter. SHe's in a safe place now. I hope she learns to like it there.

Thanks for yor kind responses and support!

Well, she isn't there. Mot now. We'll get here there today. We hope.

Walter, my mother wandered, two spectacular times, before I took charge and went through the court thing.

I'm not clear your mother is 'wandering' but I'd surmise so. Tricky business, as she can seem sound enough.

Well, you know all this.

Regards.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
I've learned that not all dementia "wandering" is aimless. Bob disappeared for a while a couple of times, and both times he was looking for me, so I know he had a specific aim in mind.

I think that a lot of so-called "wandering" is due to a particular purpose which may or may not be expressed verbally at any time to helpers or family members. The person may not even be able to express it, so others may not realise that there was a definite reason.

Of course, the "wandering" may well be a search for someone no longer living, but it's still not a totally irrational action.

In any case, "wandering" is a real and difficult problem and very much a part of dementia, particularly Alzheimer's, and this is a major reason for Bob's move to Clark House where more eyes can be kept on him.

Well, as I understood it later, my mother wanted to go to my aunt's, about ten blocks away. I was at work. I don't remember now which call was first, in those weeks, the one from Rampart police station (my name was in her purse), in downtown LA, or the LAX airport authorities, another bunch of miles in another direction.. I think she was always looking for my aunt's house, but not sure. (It wasn't that I wasn't paying attention. I was out of my mind with what to do.) It took me that twice to act on conservatorship.

This was a long time ago, before Alzheimer's was a common word.

My grief about all this is still alive.




I can also imagine being semi sentient and not understood.



I trust Walter's judgement.








Addendum, the social worker I made an appointment with, no use.
My colleagues in the med profession, no use.

That was a long time ago

People now have somewhere to turn, or at least somewhat.

I would imagine that is the most troubling time in the life of a person with Alzheimer's. It must be awful to know that one is slipping, and not have the foggiest idea of what to do about it.

There is an old story that was told by Bill Cosby. He said that his dad told him that a person should never be afraid of becoming senile, because when it happens, the person won't know it. That is only partially true. In its early stages, a person knows only too well that something negative is happening, although he might not quite know what.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Right on, Phoenix.

I understand that in the later stages self-awareness does decrease to the point where there is no longer that feeling of something wrong. Awful as that sounds, I think it must be less dreadful than the intermediate semi-aware period.

Bob has always been an intensely private person, so I honestly don't know just what he has been feeling. I think the medication for his post traumatic flashbacks may have damped down some of his reaction to the Alzheimer's. That, and being just plain so tired and weak.

Tomkitten- I had that experience with my mother. She was cogent until a few months before her death at 97. She often told me that she wanted to die. When she declined near the end, she never spoke of dying.

Mr. Noddy is aware that his once-fine mind is eroding. Unfortunately his major coping strategy is denial.

At the same time he has a neat little whip-saw routine. He's perfectly normal and deserves full respect (and adulation) but because of his failing memory he should have extra consideration (and adulation).

Noddy- I know that it is rough on you, but apparently Mr. Noddy is using whatever strategies that he can muster to shore up his pride.

I talked to the boss of a couple of senior instituions today: not only my mother shows that attitude, too (very similar at leasr) but many others as well.

Oh, and mother is since three hours now there: I gave her the choice either to go there or to join my aunt in the psychiatric hospital.


She didn't want to go to aunt that way.

By now, she sounds not to bad - but it had been quite a lot of practial social work.

Before that, we had hadd the normal routine and didn't (no-one!) reflect on what happened yesterday and what would happen in the afternoon. (I only did the paper stuff in the morning - there).

Then we drove to my aunt, and afterwards I worked on her decission, while Mrs walter afterwards helped her packking the suitcase (well, my mother was still discussing her decission more than looking at what to with her :wink: ).

Nothing new about my aunt.
Oh, yet there's a funny story: when we came in her room, she was lying on the bed and her roommate seemed to be in the toilet/shower of their room. A nurse wanted to give that lady an injection and asked not to stay there but either go to bed for a nap or join others in the ward's sitting room ...
She went wandering in the hall.
When we left the room, she addressed me and asked, if I had taken now her bed and for how long ...

Phoenix--



I realize this. Unfortunately my first husband had the same ego-boosting strategy: Putting Noddy down will build me up.

I've sworn for thirty years that I'd never live that way again.

I'm learning.

Unfortunately, the more I let illogic reign, the less respect I can summon up for the man Mr. Noddy is becoming.

This morning I had a short lecture about not emptying the lint filter on the drier when I take the dry clothes out. Instead I should wait and clean the lint filter when I put wet clothes in.

He wanted to be in charge of something and the dryer lint filter was convenient.

Noddy- What a drag!

Well what are the options? You can give him the heave-ho, or you can let what he says go in one ear and out the other. If a person has the tendency of being controlling, when he is in a mental decline, that tendency will simply escalate. Be prepared. All that you can do is change the way that you react to him.

I had a father who loved to put me down, and it took me years to overcome the damage that it did to my psyche. I don't allow anyone to do that to me now (although sometimes it IS hard, as learned reactions are difficult to extinguish).



Do you think that if can no longer respect the man, can you muster some compassion for what he is going through? The way that you react to him will have a great bearing on the quality of your life. Do you think that you can step away, and see the situation for what it is? If not, at some time you might have to consider options where you would be less involved with him.

So, what's the word on belly-button lint?

Phoenix--

One of my ways of coping is trying to untangle threads from my past--and from Mr. Noddy's past. In many ways his attitude towards me is that of a jealous younger sibling (and this attitude really intensified when Mr. Noddy's older brother died).

I'm old-fashioned about my marriage vows. I promised "for better or for worse" and will keep my promise. I was also raised with the notion that grudging compliance doesn't count.

Once more, into the breach....