Beginning stages of Alzhiemer's?

[freemotion]

For us it was SO much easier once it was out in the open. Not at first, but after a while, my mother accepted it with reasonably good humor. For a while I was the enemy since I pushed for the evaluation, then the move, then I cleaned 35 years of stuff out of the house so anytime anything is missing, I "threw it out." Not always true, but well, someone had to do the hard work and neither of my siblings were going to volunteer, that is for sure.

Now they live 3 miles from me instead of 600 miles and my mother accepts things and openly acknowledges her disease. She would hide it with anger (pick a fight if you questioned discrepancies early on....a distracting technique that worked quite well for a few years) but now that she doesn't hide it, the anger is gone. Sadness over each new loss, yes, but not the anger, thank goodness. I can ask her if she wants help now with little things like putting on a sweater, and she happily accepts it rather than denying angrily that she needs it. I invited her to make garden stepping stones with me this weekend and she at first said no, she doesn't think she can make a design anymore. I asked if we could make the design together, I'll move the stones and glass and tile bits around to make a mosaic as she expresses her opinions on it until it is to her satisfaction. She cheered right up at that suggestion. It is so much easier now that it is all in the open.

Not sure what I am trying to say....maybe that for us, the process of evaluating was rather difficult because everyone had to face it, but ultimately, it was a VERY GOOD THING. You don't have much time left so you want to make the most of it.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I totally get what you are saying. I realize even if she lives another 20-30 years, I don't have that many so I need to make the most of what ido have. I'm gonna call my sis tomorrow and talk to her. then, if Dad hasn't said anything, I will. Hopefuly sis wil be with me, and dad. and I know he is afraid to say something, so he needs our support. If meds wil slow this down, I dont care if I hurt her feelings. Time is of the essence.

 

[Britesea]

I hope you can get the evaluation and get her on meds soon. My mother was living alone, 800 miles away from me; no one realized what was happening. I think she suspected at first, because she decided to move close to me. That was when I started seeing the signs. I was able to talk to her doctor about my concerns, and he promised to test her when she came in (she was always a hypochondriac and constantly running to the doctor). For some reason, even though she had no idea WHAT YEAR IT WAS, he decided she did not have dementia and so she remained untreated until almost the very end. I did the best I could taking care of her, but when the police had to call me 3 times in one week to come get her because they had found her wandering around at night, I knew I had to ask for guardianship and get her put into a secure home. She only lived a little longer than a year after that.

The hardest time for me was when I was sure things were not right, but her doctor was assuring me she was ok. She lived in her own home (If I had brought her to my house it would have spelled the end of my marriage), and I was coming over every day. For 10 years, I did not have a life.

 

[lorihadams]

We went through this with my husband's grandmother. Nanny was paranoid and installed an alarm system but then forgot she had it and would set it off constantly. She was constantly getting into little fender benders and pulling the "I'm just a little old lady" card and never getting in trouble for it. My husband kept sneaking over to her house and taking out a spark plug out of the engine of the car but Nanny finally would just call her mechanic and then have to pay for him to come over and "discover" that she was missing a spark plug. She went out one evening and got turned around and let someone else (a complete stranger and his wife) drive her home. She was about 3 blocks from her house but didn't know where she was.

She was always misplacing things. She lost her purse countless times and called the police and told them that her grandson (hubby's brother) that lived there stole it, only for us to find it in the kitchen cabinet, or the fridge or freezer, or under the vacuum cleaner or other weird places. She got him arrested a few times before he finally moved out. She would leave the stovetop on...she had one burner turned up so high for so long that she actually melted the knobs on the back of the stove. She would take a piece of garbage from the trashcan and light it on the burner on the stove and then run downstairs to light the wood stove, setting of the smoke alarms in the house. We would find expired food in the house that she was still eating....stuff with mold on it.

When we told her we were going to sell the house and she was going to live with her daughter (hubby's mom) she went ballistic and got very violent and angry. We got her on meds but she would forget to take them or would forget where she put them. We had to go by her house every day and it just got to be too much. We sent her to live with MIL and she made it a week before she demanded to come back home and there was no home to go to....her house had been sold. She went into assisted living until they found her out wandering one night. Then we had to put her in the alzheimer's wing and she was just going down hill fast. Then we found a really good private home and she has been there ever since. She doesn't know any of us anymore and she can't walk anymore either. The saddest thing is that when everything went down with my MIL she told her that she was going to go to the courthouse and tear up her adoption papers and that she didn't have a daughter anymore. They haven't spoken since. Sad.

It's good that you are being proactive about it. I agree that you need to take her and have her evaluated and determine exactly what it is. The thing with alzheimers is that it doesn't just affect memory, it affects mood and reasoning. A lot of people with alzheimers become extremely defensive and protective of their things. They also can get paranoid and that just makes it harder for the people around them to deal with it. There are some better treatments out there now but you do need to get it verified by a doctor.

Good luck, I know it's hard

 

[snapshot]

My dad and his mother both had alzheimers for years. I really wish I had known about the coconut oil experiment when they were alive! That sounds like common sense to me!