Dealing with dementia/memory loss.

Detroit_Waves

Detroit_Waves

Detroit_Waves

Associate
Joined
18 May 2009
Posts
572
Location
Expat in LA
Hi guys,

So a few weeks back, my misses uncle was diagnosed with dementia. In a way we all knew it was coming, however nothing toooo crazy had happened for us to be concerned. However over the space of a week, a few things happened, and then a phone call at 3 in the morning, from some random guy telling us they found her uncle parked at the side of the road, and he had no idea how he got there or where he was going, kind of pushed things to have some test down. Since then, he has been living in a care home, where he can have constant monitoring, and hopefully a safe environment.

Since then, things have been getting steadily worse, and now the whole family are pretty concerned as he has mentioned a few times now how suicidal he has become. The main thing I am picking up on though, and what I keep hearing from the family and the nurses, is how bored he is. All he is really able to do all day now, is watch TV, so I'm hardly surprised.

Basically, this is something Ive been fortunate enough to never had to deal with in the past, and is fairly new to me, and most of the misses family. The past few weeks, I have been doing some research, in the hope I can find a few methods/ideas or something, to try and help. Im researching things that might help not only with his boredom, but may help with memory exercises also, and something to hopefully make him forget about any suicidal thoughts.

Has anyone dealt with this before? Or even more so, does anyone know of any ideas that I can start implementing to try and help out. Or at the very least, any great resources I can look at, to not only learn more, but to see just what I can do. There is a family member with him there normally at some point every day, but with work and other commitments, its becoming increasingly harder of this to be the case, so I'm hoping I can find some ideas to help :)

Any input would be greatly welcomed!

Thanks!
 
I don't know how to help you, I forgot. :(

IMHO it's probably the best way to keep him in care, he should be well looked after in a good home.
 
My exes mum has recently gone the same way, When the ex goes to visit her quite often tells her that people are trying to kill her or steal her house.
She's in a care home by the way.
 
Even though I dislike the old bloke who lives next door to my Mum I felt really sorry for him a couple of weeks ago.
They had a new social worked assigned to them because of his wife's dementia/alzheimers and when she came round to visit them the blokes wife told the social worker that he beats her.
Without hesitation the social worker called the police and removed her from their home where she has a history of telling neighbours that men are always breaking into her house and beating her up.
It's all in the social file but this worker took her straight out.
My mum says the bloke is distraught and is worried about his health.
 
My gran was diagnosed about 9 months ago and the deterioration has been frightening. The system is woefully inadequate at dealing with dementia people - be prepared to fight them every step of the way.
 
Quite a few people in my family developed dementia before they died.

Unfortunately there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
 
big_white_dog84 said:
My gran was diagnosed about 9 months ago and the deterioration has been frightening. The system is woefully inadequate at dealing with dementia people - be prepared to fight them every step of the way.
Click to expand...

I think the speed of the deterioration is what is most frightening. I think I understand better than the immediate close family, that there isn't much to do. Obviously I understand there isn't going to be a cure appear out of nowhere, I'm hoping just to find a way to make her uncles life as easy as possible from here on out! Or at least, make at least some point in the day more enjoyable for him!
 
Sorry to hear that.

My gf's dad is starting to go downhill as well, and pride is making him stubborn about accepting it and treatment. It really gets my gf down. :(

We'd have a conversation with him, and he would ask the same question 3 times over the space of an hour. He's perfectly lucid, but his short-term memory is shot. Long-term is fine at the moment.

It's the only first-hand experience I have had with it, and I am so glad that there is no history of any mental illness in my bloodline, all grand-parents were perfectly with it well in to their 80s (great aunt made it to 92!), but it does make me worry about if my gf will be affected when she is older. Hopefully they will have improved treatment or a cure by the time we are that old.
 
My mum is currently on the road of deterioration, and seems to have gotten frighteningly worse within the last year.

I don't live at home anymore, but have recently been told of the extent - ie. she forgets whole situations she was in about 20 minutes earlier, conversations that were had etc. She also can't recognise who she's talking to (meaning I get random phone calls from across the pond whereby she thinks she's talking to her sister but can't hear/understand me telling her otherwise). If I hang up and text her to say she was talking to me, I get random nonsense or a blank message in return.

She also can't really be left on her own anymore as she keeps falling over, apparently ringing people literally 20 miles away to come and help her up because she can't remember that my sister is in the house, upstairs or in the kitchen.

Supposedly every time they go to their doctor/consultant about it she manages to be relatively lucid, so they get fobbed off with more medication every time. I believe they're considering trying to convince her to have herself committed to somewhere voluntarily for a week, so she can actually be observed.

I suppose it'll take some of the strain off of my dad. It's a pain to see him only a few years into his well-earned retirement having to deal with all this instead of relaxing like he deserves.
 
Vinni3 @H|H said:
I don't know how to help you, I forgot. :(

IMHO it's probably the best way to keep him in care, he should be well looked after in a good home.
Click to expand...

Bit sick tbh.


To the op I have not been in your situation thank god, my nan started to go that way but died of another condition before it got to that stage.
Good luck on your quest.
 
My Dad had been diagnosed with Vascular Dementia, he's not helped by having Diabetes which has limited his ability to have certain foods and medicine.

Some days he's upbeat and although forgetful, gets on with his life fairly well. He's taken to gardening which has got him outside and he seems to really enjoy it so perhaps that's something the OP could suggest to help the boredom?

When he has bad days I find it heartbreaking quite frankly...:(
 
I thought you might find this link interesting.

I also read an article the other day where they were developing an antibiotec that prevented a certain chemical linked to dementia building up in the brain, I believe something like 80% of the test subjects had started to produce the antibodies themselves after testing.

This may not be an immediate help to you but this is certainly a hot topic in medical science and I would expect breakthroughs over the coming years.
 
My dads mom had it and my mom works with people who have it and it is a terrible problem. I hear so many terrible stories from my mom as she is a carer. I was reading recently that lack of vitamin D (from the sun) can contribute and there was some other things as well that people think is causing it, ill try and find the article. Basically it was pointing towards it being a deficiency disease, such as vitamin D and vitamin b12.
 
Going through similar myself, the alzheimers society has been a wealth of information and support for our family. Also our local gp.

The care worker that directly deals with my dads case is extremely blunt though. The first time he met us after my dad was diagnosed he told us, your dad will die from this within 5 years. At the time I thought this was harsh but realistically it's the time frame you can expect.

My dads deterioration was incredibly rapid, the worst thing is the later stages when your parent doesn't know who you are when they see you. You are literally visiting a person who thinks you are a stranger. Your parent is dead to you and you are visiting a shell of the person you knew.

You absolutely have to try and prepare yourself for that because it breaks you down visit by visit. Last week I took my ipad to show some pictures to my dad of my sons third birthday. I showed him a picture of me and my sister together and asked him if he knew who I was with. He wouldn't give me an answer and in the end guessed at my wife. TBH if I didn't walk in and say hello dad or my son hello grandad he wouldn't have a clue who I was either.

Our problem is my dad is in his mid 70's but is incredibly fit and strong for a man of his age. That's a huge problem because men tend to get angrier as they get more confused. He has to be watched like a hawk now because he's so mobile and has a hair trigger. My dad also went through the suicidal phase, it's the confusion. He would go missing and we would scour the streets and then find him in a place he grew up in 65 years ago.

They also become extremely good at hiding it. My friends used to think I was making it up. My dad would start conversations with "Hello mate how are things, I haven't seen you in ages" That's how he would learn who someone was, rather than show he didn't have a clue. So my friends would think he would know who they were.

They do test the memory regularly and tbh there's nothing you can really do for helping the memory. My dad likes to do lots of crosswords but looking through the books these days he makes up words to fit.

All you can do now is start the process, our dad went into a weeks respite where they accessed him, his temper and memory. Try to get him on groups for days out, my dad absolutely wouldn't. Then my dad went into sheltered and then a full care home. This was in a very short space of time because he became a danger to himself and those around him.

As atbpx says my dad constantly tells me tales of people stealing from him. The signs where there over 15 years ago when you would pick up a remote control in his house and he would have written his name on it and other things. :D

Finances are the other thing your family member that lives with him needs to look at. Look into the figures involved that can be kept before he goes into a home or he will lose the lot. It's about 16k iirc. My dad had nothing so he just lost his pension.

Good luck op, it will get the family down. At times it will feel like it's sapping the life out of everyone involved. All that keeps me going is the videos I have of my sons visits to him, with my dad chasing him round. :)
 
I wish you the best of luck with your situation OP, it's not the best thing to be going though.

It's really sad to see someone you know slipping away from you piece by piece.
 
Having seen a close neighbour deteriorate in less than 6 weeks from a lovely old girl into a wild violent & frightened to death woman I really do feel for all those in this thread that are having to cope with dementia.
I wish you all my very best.
 
When I lived in London I always used to make time to get my neighbour, who had Alzheimers, out of the flat as much as possible. Whether it would be taking him out for dinner or a quick pint, or just dropping by for a cup of tea and a chat.

Such a lovely bloke with some great stories to tell (he used to be a film producer) but as Krooton mentioned, we'd often have the same conversation three or four times in the space of an hour, and other times he would simply just sit there looking into space...not that I minded of course, but it was just so sad.

I just used to hate the thought of him being at home alone and vulnerable and I still do, especially as I've now moved on after splitting with my girlfriend after ten years.

I still remember having to kick out a few "tradesmen" over the years too, not to mention his own son, who would often try to take advantage of his condition and basically try to rob him blind at every opportunity. :(

Hmmm :(

Good luck with everything, OP.
 
My ex's grandma has it and as mentioned in the thread used to tell people her husband used to beat her (he obviously didn't), people used to steal from her and so forth.

She actually worked on the enigma code, was incredibly switched on, but became such a fragile state. Used to come out randomly with stuff like "right, I'm off to go see my dad" or "my mum" even though they'd been dead for 20 years. As soon as she realised they were dead, it was as though she heard the news for the first time, this happened every day. Distressing to watch.

The worst thing though really, is the effect on the family who has to see it. As bad as it might sound is that the person suffering doesn't massively realise a lot of the time due to the condition. But the family, the friends just start to see a shell of a person and the deterioration happens very quickly.

She wouldn't remember a lot of people but for some reason always remembered me and my name. Which was weird, she'd forget her husband of 50+ years, or her grand daughter but remembered my name and face and used to chat to me about her past and the war. Astounding really. She used to have this big mirror in the living room, which reflected out side. She loved watching people walk past and as silly as that sounds, that occupied her.

Even though me and the ex broke up (obviously! :p) I still think about what happened to her grand parents, I remember her grandad having a massively hard time seeing his wife fall away from the person she used to be. I can't ever imagine having that much strength, ever.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom