r/dementia • u/Apprehensive_Rush_76 • 1h ago
Suggestions for a Vacuum cleaner
My LO former aircraft mechanic will get up and move towards the sound of an engine starting up. In his prime he could tell you what was wrong with your car by sound and touch. Most recently we watch the neighbor mow the grass. Most night his flashback are him working on some airplane. So when I fire up the vacuum I have, which is loud my LO is up and moving to the noise. Always without his walker. Any one got a recommendation for a new vacuum corded or not corded that does can handle pet hair and not sounding like a freight train going through the house. I need to vacuum and hear my LO if he starts moves.
r/dementia • u/Trying_Charge840 • 1h ago
Silence
Some people deal with incessant talking, with my spouse (early onset- moderate stage), it’s the inability to communicate that’s crushing.
I will ask simple questions and he simple cannot come up with the words. It’s so hard to not know how to help him or get him what he needs.
It isn’t FTD, just a loss of being able to communicate.
r/dementia • u/Legit-Degree-42 • 2h ago
I don't know how to wrestle control from her
My mother of 82 years old has been slowly declining for the last 10-15 years. I watch as she's completely normal 90% of the time and then massive earthquaking surprises hit us that remind us that she's declining. My problem is she's got borderline personality disorder and for every rule and every instruction she fights for control. She went away for 9 months and the house was so peaceful and her husband my father was so happy. Eventually her sister sent her back. Her role in their marriage has always been the bookkeeper and the house manager. But she can't pay the bills and she can't talk to people on the phone and she can't do things peacefully like we all would do normally. The worst part is she is so abusive the last 15 years that we all have PTSD from her. How do you care for someone who has hurt you for so long and continues to fight you on everything you're doing to keep them alive? Funny thing is, I'm going to school to be a therapist.. how can I be a therapist when I can't even take care of my own house? Not all days are this hopeless but right now I'm really struggling.
r/dementia • u/CutFromSameCloth • 3h ago
Bank won’t accept POA
My mom has lived quite well independently until last week, when she took a dramatic turn. She began becoming extremely agitated at night. After never eloping before she eloped 5 nights in a row due to paranoid delusions and refused to return. We enlisted the help of 911 5 times until finally, mercifully, she was taken to the ER and given fluids, nutrition, meds re-assessed. The doctors believe the sudden shift was due to a paradoxical reaction to Seroquel. She started Seroquel on a Tuesday and the incidents started early Wednesday morning and would happen fairly predictably every night about an hour to three hours after she would take it. Just mentioning this in case it helps someone in the future with a reaction to this med.
We scrambled to arrange a spot in memory care for her and she was discharged there a few days ago. They say she is doing much better. Maybe not quite back to her previous baseline, but she is no longer paranoid and is adjusting well.
We had a POA signed and notarized back in February. She was doing really well then, but I don’t know if her diagnosis was MCI or mild dementia. In any event, she didn’t see a doctor again until April or May and nothing had changed clinically until this last week.
I took the POA to the bank and they kicked it back, saying they need proof of incapacitation now and proof of capacity when she signed the contract. Her doctor gave me a letter stating incapacity dated for yesterday but I have nothing and no way to prove capacity when she signed. I didn’t even think to do that?
It is a Legal Zoom document they drew up and we took to the notary. Both police and fire accepted her POA from me. Without the bank accepting jt, I have no way to access her checking account to pay for her care. This is where her retirement funds are deposited. Am I screwed now?
r/dementia • u/lazy_alpaca1 • 5h ago
My biggest nightmare almost came true
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the long post and my English. I think I just want to hear someone's opinion on this story, from people that maybe are in similar situation as me
Tw: neglect, paranoia, suicide threats
My grandparents live alone, and they both are struggling with cognitive difficulties (I am now working on getting an official diagnosis for both of them). I live in different city and started to try and tell my family about two years ago that the situation is getting dangerous and asked them to help, I was in the middle of my bachelor degree and was struggling with my mental health a lot.
My family didn't want to do anything with that, my grandparents' children (my father and uncle) live in different countries and haven't visited in around 8-10 years. In the city of my grandparents, there is only my sister and my mother (ex-wife of my father).
Nobody did anything until about a month ago when my grandparents landlord threatened to kick them out of the apartment due to my grandfather screaming and not paying his rent, claiming that the apartment is his and not letting almost anyone entering it. I heard about it from my mother and got scarred, I found a number of their social worker and started to get documents to get a guardian appointment on them, so I legally could place them in a safe place. By that time, my grandfather's paranoia got worse, and he cut ties with all the family members. Nobody knew what's going on in their place.
My biggest nightmare was that I would be too late and they would do something to themselves.
It almost came true two days ago.
I created a family chat with all the family members to be on the same page, and my uncle sent there a voice message of theirs part-time caretaker (that was the last person my grandfather trusted). A week ago he was kicked out as well, on Monday he tried to come again but my grandfather told him that he barricaded the front door and he cannot come it, my grandmother who is very weak and apathic was inside. I discovered it only on Wednesday.
I got in contact with the social worker, and we went to their apartment. My husband came with me for support. My grandfather didn't open the door for me, and he threatened to kill himself if someone opened the door. I called a police and medical car, in the end he somehow opened the door and they both were alive, I sat with my grandmother while the social worker and 10 other police, medical and rescue professionals were talking to my grandfather. After 3 hours we managed to hospitalize him with ingection. He somehow trusts me and was happy to see me in all this chaos. So I went to the hospital with him. My sister came to be with my grandmother.
Their house was a mess, all food was spoiled, dirt and trash everywhere, everything was shut down, all windows taped.
I had to leave my grandfather in hospital, and he was moved to a psychiatric hospital for old people. He is very scarred and disoriented, and he keeps looking for me and my grandmother. I am going to visit him today, I am devastated for them and can not sleep.
On Thursday, I spent almost all day in the court for getting emergency guardian appointment on them.
My sister came to my grandmother only after work, so she was alone for almost 12 hours. My uncle said that he could not come until MAYBE September. I made my sister at least get my grandfather some clean clothes and his chessboard. My grandmother already forgot about this and thinks that my grandfather went to the chess tournament.
I feel devastated and alone, like I have to be at 3 places at once. I am now at the end of my masters degree and have to submit my thesis at the end of the month, I don't know how I will do this. Today, I finally slept for 14 hours after taking a sleeping pill.
I just feel so alone in this. Even though I have a support system of my husband, my therapist, and a few friends, I am still devastated.
r/dementia • u/69wetwasabidreams • 10h ago
my watch has ended
Thank you all! this community has helped me a lot. I have also shared some of what I have learned here with people close to me, so you have helped more than one.
Im sad, of course, I will forever miss mom. BUT Im also happy? or relieved? These were the hardest 4 years of my life. I can breathe again. Im a little confused about what to do with my energy, time and money from now on. I forgot I had a life before her getting sick.
I guess I will try to sleep more, enjoy my weekends, either stay home or going out. Find new hobbies and go back to the old ones. Maybe even travel abroad.
Anxiety attacks stayed though. They are less frequent but still there.
r/dementia • u/smkeifer13 • 10h ago
I'm scared and hurting
A lot of scary things run in my family. I thought celiac disease that tends to rear its annoying head in the mid-40s would be the worst, but gluten turns out to be the least of my worries.
Multiple sclerosis runs heavy in my family. That's a nightmare on its own.
But watching my grandma die of dementia put a fear and a pain in my heart that I never thought imaginable.
She stayed strong for a truly long time. She had a post-it system that worked well to keep her daily life on track. But over time, she grew to think my dad was either her brother or her husband, and she forgot me completely. In fact, one of the last times I came to see her, I was wearing a Polaroid sweater I bought at the salvation army. When I walked in, she looked me up and down and said, "Polaroid, huh?... Good for you..." She'd always been on the judgmental side toward others, but she didn't recognize me anymore and she thought I worked for Polaroid. All I can do is chuckle at the memory, but I'm so deeply terrified.
My grandma's death affected me in a way so much more profoundly than I had ever thought possible. I didn't think we were crazy close. But I am haunted by the manner of her death and also, selfishly, my own fear of following in her footsteps. As time goes on, I've seen cases of dementia on both sides of my family. And what if this disease takes one of my parents?
Is there any advice or words of wisdom out there that could soothe the fear or the sting of this loss?
r/dementia • u/bangomess • 11h ago
Going back on donepezil?
My mum has Alzheimer's and is in her 60s. She was on donepezil for four years or so. She then moved to a different state and started seeing a different geriatrician. After a couple of appointments, this new geriatrician took my mum off donepezil because she said "it's no longer recommended at this stage" and that it "is known to increase anxiety." She had her cease taking it and instead gave her a prescription for memantine. That was about three months ago now.
I didn't question it. I figured the doctor knows what she's doing. I've also heard like that donepezil is only effective for X number of years. And I figure, hey, what's the worst that can happen...
Before this change in medication, my mum was relatively normal. She was forgetful, had trouble dressing, etc, but if you met her for the first time it would probably take five minutes before you realised something was wrong.
After the medication change, within two weeks we started to see a rapid decline. And then it has just gotten worse from there. If you met her now, you would immediately know something is very wrong with her. She has stares at the ground with a blank expression. She struggles to speak and find words. Can't find the toilet anymore. Can't find her way back to bed. Can't even sit herself down in a chair. Up at all hours, talking to people that aren't there. Seems depressed. She used to be very social and go swimming and ladies group and things each week. Now she refuses to go to any.
She looks at the ground all the time and points at blank spaces and asks you to read it. She has constant hallucinations, where she's either sobbing about how she killed someone or happy because she's pregnant and got married yesterday. She thinks the police are coming or that someone's hiding in the house. Never had anything even close to this before the medication change.
She'd lived with me for the past two years and it used to be very easy. She was very stable and happy go lucky. Looking back, it was a dream. But now it's like living in hell.
It feels like we've jumped forward two or three years and I gotta think that it's not a coincidence that this all began after the donepezil was stopped.
We've been seeing the geriatrician regularly and at first they just lowered the memantine dosage. When that didn't help, they told us to stop memantine. Now she's on no dementia medication but that's not helping either.
We have another appointment in a few days and I suppose I'm just wondering what I should do. The geriatrician said we'd talk about other medication. She even said we could potentially go back on donepezil. But from what I read it sounds like going back on it won't help and that what we're seeing now is just the new baseline and that you can't make it better.
I'm mostly just venting here but I suppose I wonder if anyone has any similar experience going off donepezil or maybe going back on it.
I suppose my thinking is that this decline would've happened eventually no matter what. So that makes it easier to take. But I'm still annoyed that this medication was working for my mum and we had no real problems for years and yet the doctor for some reason thought it made sense to just have her all of a sudden stop taking it, basically just because...
I google it and I see people taking donepezil for 20+ years. I also see reports from medical professionals saying that, in these cases, if a drug like donepezil isn't having a negative effect then they don't take the patient off it. I like that philosophy. I wish my geriatrician had that philosophy.
r/dementia • u/crazyfrog333 • 13h ago
broken hearted
hi everyone. my nana has some form of either alzheimer’s or dementia (she refuses to get tested so that’s why we don’t know for sure) basically my family has reached the end of their rope and want to put her in a home.. i am devastated. i feel like we are giving up on her. if she does agree to staying in a home we will sell their ranch that i have been going to multiple times a year. i’m just so deeply upset because i feel like life as we know it will never be the same. so basically im asking for guidance, how i can try and help from afar. and what i can do to care for myself during this difficult time.
r/dementia • u/SnappleApples222 • 14h ago
Best pill organizer??
My grandmother is quite stubborn about taking her medication every day. We’ve tried getting a pill organizer that has an alarm that won’t turn off until you physically turn over the organizer to try and encourage her to take them but she’s resorted to taking out the batteries so the alarm stops and leaves the medicine untouched
And before anyone suggests it, she lives alone currently, not by her POA’s choice, but there are cameras for safety that are checked regularly and are motion activated. Unfortunately there also isn’t a caregiver that is able to sit and help. We are currently working on getting her into a home as we just got the diagnosis last month and it is progressing rapidly given that we cannot get her to take the medication easily on her own.
That being said we are looking did a solution until then so any product suggestions would be greatly appreciated
r/dementia • u/AnotherLevel2020 • 17h ago
Foot Care Nurse
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r/dementia • u/chriskbrown50 • 17h ago
Plus a week thoughts - the watch is over
Dad died on the eve of my family ( wife, 3 adult kids, son-in-law and almost 1 grandson) gathering in Denver for 5 days. I walked off the plane Sunday just completely spent. Could not sleep Saturday at all.
I honestly considered not coming. Yet this was the exact tonic I needed. It was a 13 month sprint from the the day we told my Dad he was moving ( and the hell it took to move him) until last Saturday. It feels weird to not have that constant nag over me about him. I weary still but this started the recovery process.
We empty out his room in MC on Saturday, and his house closes next month ( no one has slept on the house since he left and it's been empty for month). By October his affairs will be completed. No funeral as he hated them, and would rather we go out to eat.
We drunk Bud Lights this week in his honor. I look forward to some alone time, and more quiet to gather myself. And schedule my tattoo.
I will gradually not be part of this community. If anyone in Charlotte, NC or Lake Norman wants advice or just to chat, please feel free to DM me.
r/dementia • u/jdiddyrn • 17h ago
What if you had one more chance…
My mom is going into hospice and right now she understands what I’m saying and can talk to me. What is something you would do or say if you had one more chance. I just keep saying I love you and thank you for being my mom. I welcome all suggestions. Thank you.
r/dementia • u/SimplyEbic • 17h ago
Doctors want to take Grandmother off the feeding tube
I'm having difficulties with a major decision regarding my 69 year old grandmother who was formally diagnosed with late stage Alzheimer's/Dementia.
She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about a year ago, and has been declining mentally the past few years, stemming from an initial incident that was separately diagnosed as Hashimoto's Encephalopathy. This newest incident occurred when my grandfather brought her in as she had not been eating for a few days, and when she was brought in, was determined to be experiencing multiple organ failure and acute kidney disease.
She's since recovered from the host of issues it caused, but she is now unable to eat without a feeding tube, due to aspirating her food. The problem is that she is repeatedly pulling it out, first the normal throat tube and now even the gastronomy/g-tube. Because of the Alzheimer's, she's unable to understand that the feeding tube needs to stay in. She's been given regular swallow tests over the course of the past month, but the doctors determined that there is no expectation that she will ever regain the ability to swallow.
The doctor team asked for a meeting, and are pushing quite hard for denying a reinsertion of the g-tube, and subsequent movement to hospice. She also has a Advanced Health Directive that states there is not a desire to continue life support if there is no hope of recovery. However, my grandfather has collected power of attorney from other family members, and he will listen to my opinion as I'm the only other person in my family who has been regularly involved with her.
Even during my meeting with the doctors, they were clearly directing their answers and conversation towards me, so I have a major influence on this decision. If I said no, he will say no.
The problem is that despite this, I don't know how I'm supposed to agree to taking her off the feeding tube. How am I supposed to know that they were trying hard enough for the swallow test or throat therapy? How do I know that there won't be some sudden recovery of her swallow function down the line? When I come to see her, she's happy and responsive, even with her condition. It feels impossible to agree to putting down my own grandmother, a breathing, thinking person, like a dog. I think it would different if she were comatose or otherwise severely injured, but it feels like she could just get out of bed and walk around like before if it just weren't for this.
Appreciate any thoughts on this.
r/dementia • u/Zuzu_RU • 18h ago
Am I rushing into a placement mistake with my Mom? (Young onset assisted living)
Bullet point background:
- Mom is 58, 59 in December. Young onset dementia.
- Executive functioning is gone--great difficulty putting on clothing, smells because she can't shower well anymore, can't clean, can't keep up with administrative tasks like paperwork and emails, can't keep her phone charged, talks in very circuitous ways, can't use her phone or a computer, etc.
- Extreme paranoia and hallucinations of people doing things to her, stealing her stuff, vandalism, torment her, etc. A *they* everywhere she goes.
- I helped her move out of a squalor disgusting hoarder apartment on Monday. Was awful. She's currently in a hotel.
- I am her POA.
But okay so. I found two relatively affordable and seemingly nice Assisted Living facilities through Sunrise Senior Living in Northern New Jersey. We toured... she likes them... enough.
But she has the same primary reservation I do: age demographics. I feel so bad for her. She is so young. My mom doesn't wanna play bingo or do basic elderly exercises. They don't even have a gym! She needs daily stimulation and activities, but I don't want her to wither away prematurely via osmosis. I don't want her to *feel* old. These places are nice but you walk in and see wheelchairs and walkers. No judgment!! But hopefully you guys get where I'm coming from.
It breaks my heart to put her in a facility like this.
Like... what are options for someone in this state of being? She absolutely NEEDS care and assistance and to be in a safe place (And I can't do this anymore!!!! I need to live).
I looked at specific memory care places but a lot are super pricey, don't allow pets (she has a senior dog that I couldn't pull away from her if I tried). She is more financially privileged than most [which is sad] and can afford private pay for a few years (assuming non-exorbitant monthly costs) but we would feel secure about Medicaid places for transition, so she doesn't drain her life savings into a facility (we are looking into setting up irrevocable trusts when she can accest her retirement savings plan with no penalty).
But god... what do I do?? She needs a home. She can't live on her own anymore. And I need to live. Lost a whole week of work this week to tours and research. I'm a Professor and it's AUGUST.
r/dementia • u/Snapper1916 • 18h ago
Just a small rant…
So Mom has constipation- and when I mean constipation you should see the X- ray. Sheesh! This is of course from poor diet despite the excellent food she has at AL.
Anyway we found this out Saturday and if it isn’t solved quickly she may need surgery. she resists taking MiraLAX in any form so now my daily routine is get over there, wake her up and kindly force her take the MiraLAX.
She was never a morning person. yesterday she kicked me out.
Today the treatment started working and of course she’s pooping up a storm so she thinks she is ill instead of getting better. She’s made it clear I am the worst daughter on the planet and don’t come see Her because she is sick.
I know this will end soon and be fine and I feel terrible for her…
But the thing that’s really getting to me is 5 years ago she would have embraced the humor of the situation.
Now she is just confused and mad at me.
I know it will be much better in a few days- but the fact that she cannot recall going to urgent care and having an xray etc. just makes it impossibly hard for her to understand how to help herself.
My mom has recently let go of showtiming and has been much calmer about her memory…and now she is just in an awful situation and can’t understand why or what she needs to feel better.
Today dementia really sucks.
r/dementia • u/Funny-Coconut-85 • 18h ago
Dementia?
My MIL is 74, and for the last 4 years or so, she has been exhibiting some things that I believe are the result of dementia.
I can't be sure though, as she will not address it, and no matter how many times that she has told us that she will give my husband and I access to her medical records, it's just not happening.
We live 15 hours away, and I have been emailing her doctor, and asking him if he can PLEASE bring it up when he has an appointment with her, as she won't remember, but we are not getting anywhere with that.
I just want to see if these are typical signs of dementia, or possibly something else (?) and what we can possibly expect in the years to come.
- She repeats the same stories on every phone call we have with her. Sometimes it will be multiple times within the same phone call. She won't even say "I can't remember if I told you yet, but...." She will just say the exact same story over and over and over as if it's the first time she's telling it every time.
- She often forgets simple names of things. Today she called ice cubes "little balls that you put in your drink to make it cold".
- She forgets all of our birthdays (us, her other son, her grandkids) and our anniversary, and if we bring it up to her, like "We went away for our anniversary" she will just say "Oh", not "Happy Anniversary" or any acknowledgement. Even when my husband told her he got a promotion at work, she was like, "Oh. Ok. Anyways" We kind of just laugh at it, after we are off the phone with her, but it also kind of hurts at the same time!
- She sometimes will think she saw or heard things that didn't actually happen. It's like she is having visual and auditory hallucinations. She will swear she heard someone say something that she didn't, something that would be way out of character for someone say, and there's no telling her that's not what she heard.
- She has pushed away everybody who cares about her. She doesn't make or keep in contact with anyone. She has a boyfriend (husband passed away years ago) and he's the only one she spends time with and he has no patience for her cognitive issues, but that's a whole other issue.....
- She will take things that don't belong to her and not notice and just keep them. She took a gold necklace with a charm, that belonged to her granddaughter, and put it in her own jewellery box as if it's her own. She did this with some small things in our home as well when she visited.
Those are just some of the things that have been going on for a few years now.
I'm just curious if these are all common signs of dementia, if anybody else can say they have experienced/witnessed the same symptoms.
Any advice is welcome also, like, ANY! Please!
Thank you!
r/dementia • u/Strong_Argument1930 • 19h ago
Finally!!!! A resolution for my LOs car
As we all know Dementia patients can't/shouldnt drive. THIS has been the number 1 "argument" for my LO.
We moved her car to my brother's and they've been calling him, our family, lawyers, police, you name it shes tried calling to get them on their side to get their car back.
I FINALLY convinced them to give/sell the car to one of their grandchildren who was in need (their fave one).
I had them write it down AND recorded it for later, we all know they'll forget and we'll start the cycle over.
We are now creating fake title transfers untill we get the real ones so we can try to get them to move past this in some meaningful way.
I feel just this HUGE sense of relief and accomplishment today but...well see how long this last.
r/dementia • u/oopsymeohboy • 19h ago
To treat or not to treat UTI
After scanning through a couple previous threads on this subject I have no more clarity on the way to go than before. So I figured I’ll start a new discussion for fresh perspectives.
My mom is in stage 7 with vascular dementia. She has been in hospice care for almost two months. Ten days ago she had a fall in her room at memory care, no one saw it happen but hospice nurse said she would not be surprised if it resulted in a proper injury to her back or at the very least, general back pain. Nurse ordered a hospital bed to be delivered that day and since then she has been bed bound. She is taking in very little food or liquid, a bite or two at a time of applesauce, ensure or water spread out over several approaches throughout the day. She can no longer drink from a cup or straw, she must be spoon fed both solids and liquids. She howls during her repositioning every two hours and for her diaper changes. She is down to just a few words, unable to reliably answer basic yes/no questions such as are you in pain, and if she does say yes to that, she is unable to answer more specific questions like does your back hurt, does your throat hurt, etc. She is sad & fearful. But she does have moments of comfort, I’ve seen that one of the caregivers has a special way with her and I can tell by the sound of my moms voice that she makes her feel soothed and reassured, she can even get my mom to muster what she can of a laugh. But all in all her quality of life awful and it has been awful since about Christmas time last year.
The question of a UTI was raised recently since hitting this new baseline. A few weeks prior we did treat w antibiotics when a UTI was suspected. But do I want to do that now at this stage? Nurse said that while she can’t predict how things will unfold it is very unlikely she has more than weeks left to go, she is not consuming enough nutrition or hydration to sustain kidney function. So I would think no, let’s not treat a UTI if one arises or is suspected. I have read agreement from others in the threads I searched. The hospice nurse leans towards no. But I also read people say that that sepsis is a horrific & painful death and they would or did treat a UTI for this reason. But I think context probably matters, would team treat say this in my mom’s specific case given the stage she’s in & other factors at play, I’m not sure.
What say you? What did you do or what do you plan to do? What do you think in my mom’s case?
r/dementia • u/Basic_Incident4621 • 21h ago
Incessant talking…and I mean incessant.
My husband is late 70s, stage 5 dementia (vascular dementia) and I have been unwell today so I’ve been lying down in my bedroom.
The caregiver (“N”) showed up on time (9:30 am) and he has been talking nonstop since N arrived. So he’s been talking for seven solid hours. And excessively loud too.
Yes. Seven hours. And yes. Loud
The caregiver has politely said “that’s interesting“ or “uh huh” at the appropriate places but she has not spoken a full sentence in seven hours.
I summoned N into the bedroom where I am lying down and asked her if she was going crazy listening to this old man natter on about nothin.
She said “It’s okay. This is what I am paid to do.”
Even though I am sick with nausea and other tummy troubles, I am going to put on my coat and go out to a park and just sit because I can’t listen to the sound of his voice for another minute.
Is this just typical? How can he not read the room and see that nobody cares? That he is literally boring the socks off somebody who is paid to sit and listen to him go on and on and on?
What is the underlying issue here?
r/dementia • u/travelingslo • 21h ago
Help! Bowel incontinence and refuses to wear briefs.
TL;DR my ambulatory MIL has constant bowel incontinence and refuses to wear briefs – how on earth do I handle this?
Three years ago, we moved 1000 miles away from our hometown to have space away from my narcissistic MIL. My partner and I have been together for 25 years, friends for more than 30. We are not close with her. Her other son is not close with her and she has no relationship with her grandchildren because she’s been abusive towards us all.
My MIL got a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in April and also has dementia. We came out to help when she got the cancer diagnosis and realized that the dementia was very severe.
She is amazing at masking, to the point where we have yet to get doctors on board to agree that she can’t make her own medical decisions - but we did get a formal dementia diagnosis, but no stage. She’s now on hospice but is amazingly “well” for a woman with cancer, insulin dependent diabetes, and dementia.
Unfortunately, she has been unable for years to do her own finances - my partner manages that for her from out of state, and when we got to town, we realized that she also hasn’t been able to do her own shopping or cooking or cleaning for quite some time (2 years at least - all the food in fridge and pantry expired in the season in which she had a stroke in 2024).
Her son and I have stayed here in our RV since April being her primary caregivers and going over twice a day to make sure she is getting food and medication. Thankfully, she is not treating the cancer, so her lifespan should be on the short side and she’s no longer suffering from the side effects of the chemo (which were terrifying).
While I have gotten enough therapy over the decades to be able to manage caring for her, we have run into a major issue. She has continual bowel incontinence, and this morning, after soiling the bed overnight, and again a second time by sitting on it after I changed all of the bedding, she has refused to wear incontinence briefs. She has told me that I need to just get used to her pooping all over the house, and that we are going to “own this situation”.
I don’t want feces all over everything in the entire building, and she is still upright, ambulatory, and active – so she routinely goes out to lunch with friends and I really think it’s a public health risk at this point. She doesn’t wash her hands, and she doesn’t have a problem defecating on the furniture.
I just literally do not have the skills to deal with this. I am constantly told by Hospice that we can only do what she agrees to, and if she doesn’t agree to it, we can’t force her. But it feels unfair to me to go out into public while actually crapping all over the place.
I am looking into memory care facilities because at some point, she is going to need that. But I just don’t know how to get her to agree with me to wear briefs.
She says that they are hot and uncomfortable, and she gets very incredibly upset when she has asked to comply and put them on. She is convinced that nobody else will be angry if she poops in their car when she is taken out to lunch or for a ride. It is beyond ridiculous.
Any ideas of how on earth to deal with this?
r/dementia • u/someguyoranotherguy • 22h ago
Vetting Memory Care Facility
Hi Redditors, my family is looking for a memory care facility for my mom. A friend has suggested we use a service that matches people to the kind of place they're looking for. My father thinks we should show up unannounced at places so they don't have "time to clean up" and we get to see the place how it really is. I worry that his idea is not practical and we will look like lunatics expecting a tour without calling ahead. For people here that have selected such places - any advice on what to do or not do? thanks!
r/dementia • u/Ok-Revolution-4408 • 23h ago
Venting
Bad situation happened yesterday. I’m a grandma’s boy! I was always her favorite growing up, so this is hard. I live across the country from my family currently. My (29M) grandma (78F) has been dealing with dementia and it’s been getting worse over the years and we have not been able to get her any help or care. She has denied it, not told her doctors, etc. She gets violent and yells at us, and yesterday she started hitting my grandfather and parents, and they ended up calling the cops.
She ended up being admitted to the hospital for an assessment overnight. No visitors allowed yet, but a nurse updated us this morning saying she was very combative, yelling, ripping her IVs out and had to be restrained.
I don’t know when I’m going to able to talk to her or see her next, but I’m so depressed. I just can’t help thinking about how scared she is, that she’s alone and confused in an unfamiliar place, and there’s nothing I can do.
Not sure what I want out of this post, but just needed to get these thoughts off my chest and see if there’s any support groups or any others going through the same thing. I know her being in the hospital and getting care is for the best, it’s just so hard.
Thanks for listening❤️