Don't put gasoline in plastic bags

Crushed

 If this is not a test for dementia I don't knows what is!!

banpaeng

Wow,amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LadyTexan

This is frightening on so many levels.

CStrope

Crushed I do not find making jokes about dementia testing appropriate.

Crushed

CStrope wrote:

Crushed I do not find making jokes about dementia testing appropriate.

It is in no sense a joke.  When we are screening for dementia what do we look for?  

I am more than happy to say

"if we are screening for dementia by looking at bizarre dangerous behavior, I think this qualifies"

June45

I interpreted this picture quite differently. I didn't see it as a sign of dementia. Sometimes people make very poor decisions simply because they are not thinking. If this is a current picture, it appears to me that most likely gas cans were sold out and this person decided to fill plastic bags with gas because of the gas crisis. That is not an excuse for their actions. This person's panic overrode good judgement and it could have had disastrous results for many others.  I am sure you have seen the brawls that are occurring at the gas stations; people are not acting rationally.

Rescue mom

Lordy....I thought I’d seen pretty much everything in forums, but this train is remarkable!

I live in a hurricane area, so long lines and demented behavior at gas pumps, in such times, isn’t so unusual. I’ve seen people carry open buckets—just plastic pails with no cover—of gas in their back seats. The plastic bags may be a new level.

Either way, it is seriously scary to think these people are on the road with you.

Rennbird

Plastic bags filled with gasoline makes me worry even more about today’s educational system.  It reminds me of the folks who drank aquarium cleaner to combat corona virus.  Whatever happened to common sense?

CStrope

Crushed....still not funny or appropriate.  I for one know that the dementia testing that was done on my DH did not test for bizarre behaviors, but rather for cognitive lapses. 

I come to these message boards to feel better and find support.  Lately your posts have done just the opposite. We all need to consider other people's feelings when we write things.  None of us are in this by choice, and each one of us is traveling this path in a slightly different way.  Please try and be respectful of everyone's feelings and opinions.

Iris L.

CStrope wrote:

 the dementia testing that was done on my DH did not test for bizarre behaviors, but rather for cognitive lapses. 

For many PWDs, memory loss is not the first sign.  Lapses in judgement are the first signs.  Usually these are in the area of finances, managing money or spending.  But I suppose any lapses can be evaluated when taken into context.  Bizarre behavior might be considered a lapse.

As for carrying gasoline in an open bucket--I'm flabbergasted!

Iris L

banpaeng

For you guys thinking this was inappropriate posting from Crush, I hope your feeling are not to hurt.  LOL  LOL

If you think this is normal behavior and was brought on by the gas shortage, if your loved one could even figure this out would be wild.

I want to read things that are real, not trying to hurt feelings, but to say such nonsense.  I want to read REAL.

Ok throw your dartz.  It won't hurt my feelings.  Maybe give me something to laugh at because what I live is not funny.

zauberflote

I'm thinking back to that artificial gas shortage back in the early 1970's was it? We meekly lined up at the pump on odd- or even-numbered days as the case may be, and took our 10 gallons or whatever it was. I was in Vermont at the time. Vermonters were not generally known for being meek but we did know how to go without when that was called for! 

Taking Crushed's comment at face value: that photo illustrates that lack of executive function is not in the least limited to PWD. That's worse than driving a Pinto!

Of course.... those bags could be giant water balloons filled with horse p-ss......

Joe C.

Zetta, I guess when that horse was led to water it had no problem drinking

Donr

I have no problem with Crushed posting. I understand it may bother some.

David J

My humor has gotten me in trouble my whole life. Even in the worst of times I have found humor somewhere, and sometimes others find it disrespectful, or inappropriate. For me, I have to find some things funny or else cry. Haven’t we all been there with our loved ones?  We’ve recounted their behavior here on the boards, and we’ve responded with laughter to PWD antics. I don’t tell you the half of it! 

I say: just chill. If you don’t think it’s funny, don’t laugh, and move on. 

1962ART

Rennbird:  Education system has nothing to do with it.  Lack of education?  Everything!

David J

I just have to add this off my news feed: 

 This gas hoarding thing is going way too far. It’s bad enough that people have to be reminded to not fill up shopping bags with gas, now people are getting hurt through questionable choices involving fuel hoarding. 

So apparently filling plastic bags with gas is a thing people need to be warned against, and reminded. 

Joe C.

Plastic Bags will need new warning labels:

 “Keep out of the reach of children and gas hoarders”!

Nowhere

Agreed David J -  Everyone is responsible for their own feelings. A joke can be funny, sweet, sad, maddening, or hurtful depending on the receiver’s perception. We have unique filters based on our values, experiences, personality, and mood. The old joke about being so forgetful one can hide his own Easter eggs was at one time funny to me. After my husband was diagnosed with AD hearing it caused me to feel it was a highly insensitive joke. We are each free to interpret and also free to respectfully share our thoughts about the matter as cstrope did. In this process we all grow. 

I’m amazed by the photo. I’d never thought to carry liquid of any kind in a plastic bag. The fear of gas shortage was real! Maslow’s hierarchy of needs failed again forgoing the need for safety over the need for (literal) power. 

lqadams

What Crushed posted was not inappropriate.  Why have people become so ultra sensitive and offended so easily? I found it sarcastically humorous.  

But, those people weren't taking a dementia test. It was an IQ test and they failed miserably.  If the post and photos were real, what they did was dumb and dangerous. 

Crushed

Serious point on dementia tests

Physicians do "cognitive tests" because they are easy to do in the office  not because they are particularly meaningful.
 I have worked on testing methods my whole career.  I was a law professor in an engineering school.  While I was a law student I worked as an engineering technician developing test methods.    Tests are all abstractions of reality and the quality of that abstraction depends heavily on our understanding of reality.  

We do not have a good understanding of dementia so medical tests for it are extremely imprecise.   Doctors  heavily rely on caretaker reports of bizarre behavior.
 
Think of driving.  There is no simple test to see if  people with dementia can still drive.  What we look for is BOTH  general skills decline and sporadic bizarre driving behavior.   

 The differences among  stupidity, ignorance, dementia and sociopathic behavior  are often subtle  think about Sherlock Holmes'  comment
 
 This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a teetotaller, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife......

Truly bizarre and dangerous behavior  should not be ignored as a possible symptom of dementia

jfkoc

True, the tests given by Drs do not test behavior but "bizarre" behavior is an important part of the diagnosis and the caregiver is the best person to share the same.

JoseyWales

Gasoline in trash bags.... reminds me of a scene from My Name is Earl where the main character and his brother kept trying to steal gas from a car and put it in garbage bags. The garbage bags kept bursting.

I just can't imagine what happened to all that gas when it ate its way through the plastic.

Iris L.

"Cognitive tests" done in doctors' offices are supposed to be screening tests.  They are supposed to alert the doctor for the need for further testing and investigation.  In all cases, the history of behavioral or other changes is an important part of the diagnostic evaluation.  

This is how I was taught in medical school.

History +

Physical examination +

Laboratory tests +

Other tests =

Working Diagnosis

Iris