Dealing with Dementia

When you love someone and they have dementia, life becomes increasingly complicated.  Someone with dementia usually does not realize that they have a problem.  They are in their own mine who they always have been.  To their way of thinking they can do whatever they used to do.  They can become indignant easily, and resentful of their care taker, particularly if that care taker is their own child.

I have made all kinds of mistakes in trying to take care of my mother who is currently suffering from advanced dementia.  I have found that it is somewhat like watching a two or three year old child who is inquisitive but lacks judgement.  If a child is doing something that you think is not good for them or harmful in some way, it is easy to say something to the child even to divert them in some way.  An adult who has dementia is not so easily diverted.  You can say no do not feed the dog, and minutes later she has forgotten and is feeding the dog again. She can become indignant and argue, sometimes slamming down whatever is handy and stumping off.

At dinner time, or anytime that I am trying to get something accomplished, I have to endure a innumerable request to help.  I try to find small tasks for her to feel useful , but more and more she is less able to preform these task.  Even after helping she still continues, making my tasks at hand ever so much more difficult.

Recently, I have noticed that I am unable to explain anything to her.  When I have tried to explain, it results in making her frustrated.  I have learned, I hope, to use less words.

This is so hard to become accustom to.  Mother was once a vibrant person, capable, a care taker herself. 
Accepting dementia in a parent is difficult especially when they were always able and ready to be there for you.  My mother has a form of dementia.  The blessing here is that in her mind she is who she always has been, and in the moment that is true.  It probably was much harder on those of us who love her to accept that slowly we were loosing the friend and mother that we loved so much.  Once I accepted that my mother had changed, i was able to appreciate her as she was.  Yes I have mourn for her...often wishing that I could ask her questions that she is no longer able to answer.  Recently she lost her long time best friend.  I think that I realized that I had lost one more link to the past that my mother was no longer able to supply.

I now after years of denial am able to deal with my mother and her dementia daily.  I no longer fret over her constant questions repeated and repeated over and over as she struggles to keep her consciousness.  I have no idea how frustrated she must be.  I know how frustrated I had become trying to deal with it myself.  I no longer correct her when she makes up stories about places she thinks she remembers. Somewhere in her mind these places strike a memory about another place and it transfers to what see believes to be true.  Besides correcting her only serves to upset her.  I am able most of the time now to keep my cool,  when I don't it is my fault not hers.  I feel terribly about it.

There are times when she is in the moment exactly who she is sharp and completely with it.  She listened recently to a customer give me a very hard time and this much younger woman told me that I was being rude to her.  Mom in a moment of total clarity said, "No, you are being rude to her."  Yes, thank you mom, you've always been there for me.

Instead of becoming someone who does not know you or even who she is my mother in essence is still my mother. Hopefully she will remain who she is inside even if she can not remember what I said a minute ago.  I love you, Mother, very, very, much.  We are blessed that you do not have Alzheimer.