Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

There is a man, a former psychologist, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. He has written a book, "Alzheimer's from the Inside Out".


Link to book.

I have not read it personally, but a number of the people in the group I run have, and have heard him speak. They say that the book is wonderful to get a better understanding of the illness.

Also, the book "The 36 Hour Day" is a must read for caregivers.

Tomkitten--

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to start exploiting the local library by following the local library's rules. I've added The Uncommon Reader to my list.

Phoenix--

At this point, I'm not so much interested in understanding the failing mind as surviving the failing mind. Mr. Noddy's decline has been going on for more than ten years now and I've read a great deal about the medical nuts and bolts and various coping strategies.

These days given a choice between a Sensitive Portrait of a Dementia Patient and a rip-roaring Space Opera, I opt for the escape reading.

(from back on the last page, good, Noddy..)

So mother got a letter from the court and the judge's decission, to get her examined by a court-approved psychiatrist and the county office which handles all such.

Went quite well: she wants me and the nurses attending that examination, said that in front of witnesses, I wrote a letter for the court about that, she signed it ...

Sounds like things are developing. And that you are handling things very well. Good luck.

This is so difficult. You want to look at the situation as an objective professional, but then it is your own mother who is the subject of case.

Also I guess the nature of her condition varies from day to day sometimes minute by minute. My mother would talk utter rubbish (not baby talk, just stuff I knew was not true...I just let her talk) then suddenly she was back to her "old self" for a moment and we were having a conversation as if the previous "rubbish" had never been said. But it didnt last.

Steve- And therein lies the "rub". I think that loved ones hold on to the lucid times, hoping against hope that the irrationality was simply a temporary state of affairs. For many people, the observing of a loved one swinging back and forth between rationality and dementia can be very emotionally draining.

One day my parents were sitting in the living room watching television. Mom stood up and went down the hall to attend to something and when she returned my father angrily demanded to know who she was and what she had done with his wife. My mother explained that she was his wife, but he responded that she couldn't be because his wife was young, pretty, and had red hair - not an old lady. The flip-flopping between rationality and dementia was very difficult for her.

Amen.

I'm not going to review the details of Mr. Noddy's three tantrums yesterday or the wing-ding of a hissy fit he threw this morning.

Sure as the Goddess made little green apples and enterprising cockroaches, Mr. Noddy will have more tantrums. Keeping detailed memories would be like keeping every piece of Kiddie Art when there is a limited space on the family refrigerator door.

Marital threesomes with dementia as the extra, added attraction make for extreme lonely times.

In spite of the weather, I've been able to get out to run various errands three out of four days this week--and I have an appointment tomorrow that the weather will probably let me keep.

Four and a half more weeks of disrupting holidays. Four more months of snow.

15 more days until light 'lasts longer' in the evening..

Osso--

And thirty more days until we will have as much daylight as we have today.

January 5? I can last until January 5. I'm even prepared for the Political Powers to mess around with Daylight Saving Time again this year.

You got it. Thanks.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Walter and Noddy - You are both coping with really bad situations, and doing it well, but Phoenix is so right: emotionally draining is the truth and then some.

Keep on dealing with things as they come, day by day, event by event, and try to concentrate on one at a time; don't let your minds and emotions sprawl all over - it will just exhaust you further.

I'm thinking of you both.

Thanks all.


And you're so right.

One day at a time. One hour at a time.

Some rather "rough" days behind me.

More to come, I suppose.

However, I'll have a meeting with the leading nurses and the director of the home and the abulant service today at first, then with the doctors: mother is now again dangerously living in her world.

(Which is quite confusing for someone not knowing her/family background: there are three persons involved: my father, the person looking like my father and living with her [that's me] and a third [that's the one, when she not only 'recognises' that my father is dead but that it can't be me neither].)


Aunt is doing better, medication starts to work - and she seems to like it in this really very safe surroundings.

Is this the best single-simplest-choice for my wife to get a leg up with her aging mom?

My wife is such an independent sort that she will not ask for help from me for her mom until the very bitter end of her rope / stamina / patience / understanding.

That of course makes it doubly complex for me to do anything because I hear all about the problems; but in no easy-simple-way am I "permitted" to offer suggestions to improve things or help more directly.

With my aging mom it's much the opposite in that the smallest thing will elicit an immediate call to me.

Both moms still live on their own, but both moms probably should not; both mom's mental faculties are generally quite sprightly all things considered, at least compared to some of the very sad tales being presented here.

Good luck with the meetings Walter. Glad to hear Aunt is ok at the moment.

Chumly- I have not read ALL the books on Alzheimer's and dementia. I did find "The 36 Hour Day" very valuable, and the general concensus that I have heard from many people that it is the definitive book for caregivers.

When my mom was alive, I too, like your wife, did not ask for much assistance from my husband. In my case, I knew that he did not like her very much, (understandably) and that his advice would be affected by his feelings towards her. Whenever he did become involved, I found that his advice made my job harder, not easier.

In addition, it took all the strength that I could muster to keep making what I felt were appropriate decisions for her along the way. I don't think that I could deal with the stress of having to get into discussions with my husband about differences of opinion.

Done. With a result that completely corresponds to my professional ideas - and is a bit hard to accept as a son:
- it would be the very best for mother to stay in a home,
- she wants to stay at home,
- so it shall be,
- with all consequences.

If/When I'll become her legal guardian, things won't change that much, but we get a really strong legal basis for actions.

The library of our regional Alzheimer society is located just 150 yards from my home (well, until the end of the year - then they'll move it to their offices [which were moved from here to that different place earlier]).

I've got a special eduaction re Alzheimer, but more related to disabled persons (and re my job as social worker); so I know at least the basics.