re: Alzheimers: Has anyone experienced it with a parent and willing to share experiences?

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Alzheimers: Has anyone experienced it with a parent and willing to share experiences?

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yeah, unfortunately you have a rough ride ahead of you.

it doesn't get better.

you'll sacrifice all your time and money to devote to their care. they will come to resent you as their caretaker over time.

its a no win situation but on the bright side this will build character and tell you what you're made of.

you're doing it because they have a disease; dementia and can't tell you or show you how much they appreciate what you're doing..but they took care of your punk arse when you were growing up and gave you the sun and the moon. time for you to pay them back even if they are rude, don't know who you are or have physical outbursts.

YOU ARE DOING THIS FOR THEM AND BECAUSE YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART YOU ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING. Just don't get frustrated because they don't appreciate it..its not their fault. If they were in their right mind they would never want you to be burdended with this.

its tough stuff; especially when they're otherwise in good health and have many years ahead of them to live.



good luck i wish you the best but i need to go ahead & tell you to dig in and keep a bottle of whiskey handy to enjoy after those long days.

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Lots of imaginary visitors & people w/o names he wanted to find & help. Sometimes would introduce himself to me.

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While unnerving at the time we were able to find humor in some of these instances

My Grandma was just a chattering & moving her arms
I asked what she was doing
talking to this little boy
A little boy? What’s his name?
Puddin' Tame, ask me again and I'll tell you the same

Another time she asked for water & when my mom tried to give her some she wouldn’t take it from “that floozy that goes up & down the street”

The previous poster hit the nail on the head as far as my experience, it will take all your time and energy and they will come to resent you.

My father had it bad and we didnt realize just how bad until my mother passed away. She had done a very good job of masking it.

He had his own home, fully paid for, but we had to move him into assisted living because he couldnt care for himself and because my worthless brothers were robbing him blind.

For about 2 years, he didnt know who I was and he would call me by his brother's name. He couldnt remember much about the present and was mentally stuck in his early 20's when he was in the Air Force. He couldnt remember that his parents and most of his siblings were dead, that my mother was dead, or where he lived.

A few things that we experienced that seem to be common to others that I have spoken to:

1) You have to accept whatever their state of mind is and try to make the best of it. As others have said, you can't force them into the present.

2) They may be very suspicious of you. I thought this was just my dad until others told me they experienced the same thing. He would accuse me of trying to steal his money even though he didnt have any. Every month when his pension and social security checks came in, my 2 brothers would "borrow" it all within a week and he would be broke. I paid his bills and when I would tell him he had nothing left to spend he always thought I took his money.

3) You will hear things no child should ever hear from his parent. Turns out he was about the dirtiest old man I ever encountered. He would tell stories of trying to get the nurses to stick their fingers in his butt all the time. I also found out that I had a sister that no one ever knew about (and a different race to boot).

4) You have to deal with the repeated questions and confusions as you see fit. Most days I would go right along with him calling me by his brother's name and not correct that. I knew that he recognized me as someone in his life and didnt worry that he couldnt quite make the correct connection. It was only on a few occasions where he was getting a little too excited about wanting to go home to his mother's that I had to tell him that she passed away over 40 years earlier.

5) You are going to feel guilty. I consider it a small favor that my father passed away suddenly and the disease didnt progress to the very end. I visited with him on a Sunday night and he was friendly and talkative. I got a call the next day at noon from the facility that he was being taken to the hospital by ambulance because his blood pressure had spiked and he incoherent and running a fever. I was shocked when I got to the hospital and the doctor told me he was septic and wouldn't make it through the night. I still question whether I did enough.

6) Accept that you are not going to be able to do this on your own. Putting my father into assisted living was a tough decision but absolutely the right one. He needed to be where he had 24 hour a day monitoring and medical care provided.

7) It is going to get worse - a lot worse. I pray that you do not have to watch the disease progress to the end. It is a cruel disease that takes the person you knew long before they actually pass away.

I wish you the best of luck and hope that you have a better experience than I did and I recognize that my experience was far from the worst.

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7) It is going to get worse - a lot worse. I pray that you do not have to watch the disease progress to the end. It is a cruel disease that takes the person you knew long before they actually pass away.

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this x100.

buy whiskey. remind yourself daily this *IS* a disease and don't take anything personally. you're doing the right thing and its your job to ENDURE because you can.

agree 100% on the language. my poor sweet mom had never uttered a profanity in her life but dementia does crazy shite to your brain.

When my grandaddy's was bad I would take him on drives through the country and ask him if he remembers what the place was like 40-50 years ago. He could remember the owners, how they inherited the land, what crops they raised, and stuff like that. I thought it was all just wild stories but I did some digging and the memories were real and all facts. But... he couldn't remember how to tie his shoes or what he had for breakfast. Those are some of the last memories I have of him and they were comforting for both him and me. Ask him about the good ole days, moon pies and stuff of those sorts. Can help distract from the anxiety and worries.

Mom had dimentia, which of course is a variant of Alzh...

very very very tough....I live in La and my sister and Mom lives in Dallas, making my sister her PCG. Well, my sister is a RN which helped tremendously but the stories I could you would turn you white in the face.

God bless my sister and what she so patiently put up with but if the roles were reversed, I'd had easily put a gun to my head a long time before.

Mom passed two yrs ago May.

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Just spend time with him and try to do things that don’t cause frustration with memory or confusion. We used to sit and watch football with him and it was nice just spending time together with no anguish.

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i will always cherish morning coffee with my mom. that bitch could drain 2 pots faster than i could finish 2 cups

I highly recommend the book, The 36-Hour Day, by Nancy Mace.

I had an uncle that had it and died eventually from it. It’s a fricking cruel bitch of a disease. It sucked seeing someone whom I cared for very much completely change and fade away as a person (mentally and physically). Thankfully, I don’t think his “mean stage” lasted very long, but that’s one of the roughest stages I believe. He used to say shite to my aunt and cousin that was just mean. And you know he doesn’t mean it, but I imagine it is still difficult to hear.

One of his sons posts here so I’ll let him elaborate if he wants to. But Alzheimer’s can go frick itself and it’s very, very cruel and sad with what it does to people. I know my aunt had a rough go with it as well, although she’d do it all again in a heartbeat if it meant more time with him.

ETA: one day early on he dropped my aunt off at church and then wasn’t there to pick her up. He ended up driving from Baker to Bogalusa (~ 1.5 hours away) and didn’t even realize what he had done. Thankfully he ended up at a Piggly Wiggly and someone called the church and got in touch with my aunt. Was pretty scary though.

my grandmother had it and it was bad.

She would start dancing every time you saw her since they were forbidden to dance as kids by the church.

She also crossed a two lane black top road 20-30 times a day to check the mail.

Bout drove my old country grandpaw nuts himself before she died, he had no idea what was wrong with her