Fading from Memory: What Happens to a Family When Both Parents Have Alzheimers?

She hit him in his face one day saying she caught him talking on the phone to his girlfriend. That was impossible because she had unplugged the entire phone service while ripping up the carpet in the back room, so the phone didnt even work. She refuses to go to the doctors and get checked. When she does go into the ER she will sign herself out before getting the help she needs. I have called adult protective services on my mother and even they didnt do anything. I got a hold of aging adult services. They have done nothing. She hasnt taken a shower the whole time i have been back staying with them.

I have recorded her flipping out and saying some way out stuff but i dont know what to do. I am running out of hope and they are out of time. Please someone help me!!!! You might not be able to get info from the doc, but you can sure tattle tale on your dad or mom to the doc. My wife has just been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers and also frontotemporal dementia. She argues with me all the time over her not having short term memory loss.

Is your spouse cheating? My mother from hell since birth has given me a hard time. Just last year, she called the police on me because she forgot the night before that the neighbors called the police on her because she was screaming like a psycho because she told me to keep on taking my medication. So the cops came and talked to me li ke I was sick in the head. The next day , she called the police on me because I splashed water on her face that day.

I was so hurt by that. Any advice on what to do with her? Better to diagnose with the disease now then later. The doctor has said that she is suffering from Alzheimer and i have observed these symptoms. She tends to make up stories which has never happened. She forgets present things like taking insulin and preparing the bed for the night. She has become quite weak.

It would be very helpful if you could suggest me a way to reduce such problem. Snoop while she is not looking or sleeping you need to find all that stuff. They are in denial. I took charge now they understand and see it all very clear. She is in the moderate stages of Dementia. I also recommend Azo for UTI about once a month to make sure as a pre caution. I will when the time comes. My mom is 83 now and she has been with me and my husband for 2 years now. She had a small fire like she dropped a dish hit the glass door of the stove and it was on small fire broke out.

I picked up the stuff and cleaned the hotel room got her things and away we went. She would stay with me until her house was done wrong! My husband is a mild mannered person but, that did it for him he called and told the operator to talk to her and needed to do something and here comes the cops, fire department, and ambulance to take her away. She had done that to my brother and now he has it on his record and was in jail for it.

She went to the ER that night as my husband sat with her and cried till the Dr.

When my mom developed dementia, my dad tried to deny it and I tried to fix it. We both failed

When she first got here I cried all the time she would say I killed my dad and I was a whore and all kinds of bad things. She smokes like crazy and because of that I quit smoking just watching her did it for me. I hope this help those who have a hard time with someone they care for. You have to be in control because they are no longer in charge. Mom hides things and uses toilet paper and misses the toilet every minute of the day but hey she took care of me.

I love her always.

Hello, my dad is 60 years old. For the past few months he changed a lot. His judgment became very poor, he drives faster than he used to and has really bad decisions concerning things. He also just stays home and doesnt like going to coffeeshops anymore. He also repeats things such as questions alor, for example he asks something about my college and then after sometime he asks the same thing again like I never answered him about it.

He sometimes forgets appointments with people, he lately forgot an important one. Needless to mention that he always forgets where he puts his stuff like keys or phone. Are these signs of dementia or Alzheimer? I had similar questions. Like you, I also have questions about whether dementia and personality disorders might exacerbate each other. My dad is very passive-aggressive which is why he will definitely NOT go see a doctor if I suggest it.

It could even be both. My dad he is 65 year old. She imagines things, accuses me the one person helping her of all sorts of things, while she steals from me and is abusive towards me. She gives money and things to anyone who falsely flatters her, but tells me she has no money for things that she makes me do for her around the house e. She lies to others about me to get sympathy. Mind you they see her once a year for a couple days only when she flies and sits in their houses for holidays. Who can I go to to protect her from giving away any more of her money?

She has no long term care insurance and not much money to live off of.

Or do I just let her get ripped off to poverty, screwed over by my psycho siblings while I go far far away? Thanks for any tips. My mother is 85 and since December she has gone downhill very quickly.

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She left the house one morning at 2 am and was lost in the woods for 5 hours. Found out she had a UTI and that makes dementia much worse. Today, I called and she was crying because her husband, my stepfather told her we were all dead. We are trying to get her on medicare so she can go into a home but he makes it impossible. They live in a rural VA area and there is almost no help for them. He repeats words and sentences incessantly.

He is terrible at managing money these days. He also has mood swings that were not like this before. Is there more than can be done, perhaps by a neurologist? I am struggling with how to have my partner bring this up with his family. My mom is She was herself… driving, doing her own taxes, etc. Since then and now — and especially the last 2 years, she has declined to the point that she quiet simply is no longer the same person. She is confused, has horrible pain from stenosis, on dilaudid.

She is now asking desperately who We are, where she is, where is her husband, her mother. Rather, I believe, folks should be asking God to bring these people home to him. I pledge to take my own life while I still poses the presence of mind and before I degrade into helplessness and confusion. Modern paharma-medicine and antiquated moralities are making us torture folks beyond their natural end.

We live too long when we are reduced to failing body functions, suffering indignities like having to be obsessed with making it to the bathroom in time. We live too long when what is left of us is robbing our children of their sanity and capacity for compassion. We live too long when all that keeps us alive is the guilt of others. Hi my name is Andre 16 , recently my friend forgot my name.

Please help this daughter of God P. My mom is 87 years old and still lives by herself. My dad passed away 5 months ago and her doctor says that her forgetfulness, repetitiveness, etc. I would always have to go with my dad to all of his doctor appointments because mom would never remember what the doctor said, minutes after they left.

I had to write down her address and phone number and tape it to the phone in case she had to call for my dad because I was so afraid she would forget her address she ended up calling me the day an ambulance had to be called and I called She sometimes gets easily confused about: Some of the time, she is good.

She still keeps her check book and pays her bills, which thus far she is doing okay with but we have to constantly go over it together not normal for her. She has always been so sharp and active but some days she just seems vacant to me. It could be loneliness and grief or it could be something else.

She wants to stay in her house. Hi, we are looking for advice on whether to move back closer to home, especially now in light that my FIL is starting to have memory problems. His symptoms are self recognized but this most recent trip home has shed some light that his memory problems may be getting worse. MIL and extended family are all local so there is support. The big question is should we also try to be closer so that we can support and take advantage of the good years now in case there are bad years ahead? If you think his memory is getting a little worse, I would recommend he see a doctor as many health problems can worsen brain function.

These include certain types of medication esp for sleep or anxiety , thyroid problems, depression, substance abuse, vitamin B12 deficiency, sleep problems including insomnia or sleep apnea, and much more. I am very worried about my father lately. He forgets what I told him like one or two hours ago. Sometimes he asks me things over again, not a lot but he does sometimes. Should I worry and take him to the doctor? Or could this be because of the wedding stress and not because of alzeihmers?

Hi, I really hope you can give me some advice. For general approaches that are proven to optimize brain health — and work in people who have dementia — see the link I shared above at Better Health While Aging. A study published last year found that cognitive decline happened faster when people with dementia had very low blood pressure:. Vascular dementia is caused by conditions that block or decrease blood flow to the brain. Often these seem to be very small strokes. The approaches that prevent major strokes e. Autopsy studies have found that mixed dementia is fairly common.

I describe these here: Depending on the brain damage done from stroke, and the proper treatment of the underlying symptoms which caused the stroke such as high blood pressure , the progression of vascular dementia can be halted. What is difference Between Alzheimer and Vascular Dementia and if it is Vascular Dementia does it proceed to get worse more slowly.

I would push the doctors for further evaluation. Insist on them doing a MOCA test mocatest. She took care of their children, and she took care of him. The idea that he take care of her seemed to confound him. Putting the correct pills into the Morning, Noon and Night boxes of a plastic medication organizer proved such an ordeal, I had to cancel a business dinner and take a train from the city to do it myself.

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This is not uncommon, says Lisa Gwyther, director of the Duke Family Support Program and an associate professor in the university's department of psychiatry. Many of them tell me, 'I need to believe she's going to get better in order to wake up every day and deal with her.

It became apparent that as a family, we needed some help. Our doctor put us in touch with a social worker, Roberta Epstein. With Mom now retired, Epstein and the doctor encouraged her to participate in recreational activities — painting classes, museum field trips. My mother's dismissal was scorching. She was too old for summer camp. But the doctor prevailed.

It was essential, he said, to have activities to look forward to. We enrolled her in ceramics, a poststroke exercise class and a weekly lecture series. Visits to the library, her longtime haven, were no longer possible; she had lost her ability to read. Epstein coordinated a series of family meetings. I had been hoping we could guide my dad to see the situation more clearly, get more involved in Mom's care. That was too simplistic an assumption, according to Karen Krefman, a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University.

Boundaries are crossed, rules change, roles change. You have to engage the healthy parent and work with him or her to accept what no one wants to accept. Of course this was true. My own screaming sent my father out of the third family meeting, and he wouldn't come back. Yes, I was frustrated with his obstinance — his refusal to see the truth that we kids saw — but maybe what really infuriated me was that he couldn't just fix it. The way Mommy always fixed it. That seemed to be my job now, fixer in chief. Interviewing home health aides?

What was I actually fixing? In the family meetings we managed to have, Epstein logically divvied up caretaking responsibilities among my siblings and me. But if my parents had gone AWOL on their roles, my siblings' childhood reflexes kicked right in: Alex will do it.

I was the oldest and, with Mom working all the time, I had always been her de facto deputy. Why would anything change now? Also, at that point, all my siblings had infants or toddlers; one lived far away, and another was coping with illness of her own. By continuing to browse, you agree to the use of cookies described in our Cookies Policy.

You may change your settings at any time but this may impact on the functionality of the site. To learn more see our Cookies Policy. Losing a parent to dementia requires a unique form of emotional stamina Every time you see them, you grieve a little bit more, but you never, ever show it. By Claire Micks Tuesday 30 Sep , 8: I need to let him be, as he is now I had to resist the urge to push him a little. Learning to accept it I find myself more tactile with him than ever before.

Claire Micks is an occasional writer. Living with dementia — two families talk honestly about this heartbreaking disease. See more articles by Claire Micks. Contribute to this story: Please select the reason for reporting this comment. Please select your reason for reporting Please give full details of the problem with the comment Let's talk about sex and pornography - like adults do Caroline West Now is the time for a mature and sensible discussion about sex and porn. We really need mandatory modern sex education introduced in schools too, writes Caroline West.

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