Alzheimers sucks

[tom slick]

I know what you are going through.
My mother in law is in the later stages of Dementia and it can be very difficult to be around her. Most of the time she is catatonic but then wakes up and may start yelling and cussing or routinely demand to use the bathroom but then forget why she is up on the way. She can no longer to anything herself but might fight with whomever is feeding her. Every once in awhile something will trigger a lucid response and you know she’s in there somewhere.
It’s really unfortunate, she was a easy going, loving person until a few years ago.

 

[manicrodder]

Long hard day today.
Brother and sister are RNs and have been invaluable in helping with our mother during her slide into alzheimers.
She thinks my father is my long gone grandfather and doesn't recognize my other brother. She has recently started demanding to go home and is fixated that I'm the only that knows how to get her there.
The cruelty of the situation is both mom and dad have taken great care of themselves and having just crossed into their 90s could still probably do a 5k walk.
I've had to reorganize our efforts to manage the situation. Number 1 is to block all news channels as the more she watches the more she insists for me to take her home. When I got there today I changed the TV to our local 60s and 70s sitcoms channel, think Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle, Green Acres and she chilled out soon and came back to us somewhat.
I of course know every day is different and it won't get any better but she is in the confusion stage and "home" is a yearning for comfort as she gets agitated and tired.
At least I can make her laugh since I can't take her home as she asks, because as I tell her she is my favorite mother.
I helped my dad through this with his dad 20 some years ago and I know first hand how this is going to end.
Praying for strength.

My Mom had dementia in her 90's. Prayers.

 

[john_pifer]

My wife and I both lost grandmothers to Alzheimer’s. It’s tough, but there are moments of joy, when they recognize you momentarily. Maybe not fully, but enough to realize that you love them and are there to try to help them.

Its crazy how dementia wrecks their shorter-term memory, but leaves memories from decades ago, relatively intact. For example, Grandma thought I was her brother, who had been dead for at least 15 years.

It was especially hard to lose my grandmother to it (1922-2001), because she was such a tough, hardworking, talented, and independent woman. But then, most folks of her generation were. Having grown up in rural northern Alabama, she had seen tough times, poverty, tragedy, but had also learned to live off the land as much as possible by growing a vegetable garden and canning every year, and also put herself through college and became a schoolteacher and was also a regional council leader in the Girl Scouts. On top of all that, she was a self-taught, expert landscaper and horticulturist whose hobby, later in life, was immaculately landscaping her yard. And then there was her cooking and housekeeping talent…I could go on and on.

OP, tell us a bit about your mom.

 

[wha232]

Long hard day today.
Brother and sister are RNs and have been invaluable in helping with our mother during her slide into Alzheimer's.
She thinks my father is my long gone grandfather and doesn't recognize my other brother. She has recently started demanding to go home and is fixated that I'm the only that knows how to get her there.
The cruelty of the situation is both mom and dad have taken great care of themselves and having just crossed into their 90s could still probably do a 5k walk.
I've had to reorganize our efforts to manage the situation. Number 1 is to block all news channels as the more she watches the more she insists for me to take her home. When I got there today I changed the TV to our local 60s and 70s sitcoms channel, think Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle, Green Acres and she chilled out soon and came back to us somewhat.
I of course know every day is different and it won't get any better but she is in the confusion stage and "home" is a yearning for comfort as she gets agitated and tired.
At least I can make her laugh since I can't take her home as she asks, because as I tell her she is my favorite mother.
I helped my dad through this with his dad 20 some years ago and I know first hand how this is going to end.
Praying for strength.

I have a story about my Dad who had Alzheimer's. I would visit him everyday after work. He had long ago stopped calling me by name but what happened that day really hit home. I was wearing my ID from work. He read it and said "Hey, I have the same last name". No clue that I was his son. That will stay with me until I am like him. I hope you have a support network, it is too much for any one person

 

[Krieg]

Everyone suffers with this disease. Very very sorry to hear about it.

 

[wemay]

Keeping you and your family in my prayers tonight. Such an incredibly insidious disease.

 

[RitcheyRch]

My mother-in-law and my dad both have it. I don't wish this disease on anyone or their family. My mother-in-law has been in a care facility for a few years now. We just moved my dad into one a few weeks ago.