Recently moved mom in

marshelles

For safety reasons, I moved my 76 year old mom with stage ~4-5 Alzheimer's in with our family 4 months ago. The constant repeating is mind boggling. How do you learn to answer over and over without flipping out? If I even change the tone of my voice, my mom cries and shuts down then I feel terrible. This lady talks non stop from dawn til she finally falls asleep at 10pm. We have lots of games, hands on toys, all kinds of things to count and sort which she loves but won't do a thing unless I'm at her side. Guess I'm just venting, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it.

*Ollie*

We moved my 80 year old mom in with us about 1.5 years ago and did not realize that she had dementia and what that even meant! I feel like it was a process to truly accept what that meant for her and us and the repeating of questions and conversations was something that took me the longest to be "ok" with.

I used a whiteboard and wrote a weekly schedule for her with a simple outline of what was happening during the week. Not many details. When that became too much, I put only one day on the whiteboard with one or two words that told about the day. This was helpful for some things because she could refer to the whiteboard throughout the day as much as she wanted to. I think that helped her remember those things, too.

For other things she'd get stuck in a loop and repeat over and over, sometimes changing the topic helped. Sometimes distracting her with music helped. Sometimes nothing helped and I'd have to walk away for a bit. When I got frustrated, which I did, I'd remind myself that she couldn't help it and that she wasn't choosing this. That helped me a lot.

Emily 123

This is a hard part of the disease to handle, isn't it? I've just become used to repeating the conversation each time. Sometimes I play with how I put the emphasis on the sentence. Do you have any adult daycares near you? Can you have an aide come in a few days a week to take her out, do activities with her, or maybe ease her into going for a walk? Perhaps listening to her favorite musical era with a headset might be something she likes.

She might not be able to do the activities unless you're there to cue her on either how to do them or perhaps your presence helps keep her on track. I noticed that my mom was cueing on me for what utensils to use at meals. It was subtle and I was a newbie, so I didn't see it at first. Sometimes the inability to initiate things is because there's difficulty putting steps in order. Are there any simple games she consistently played when she was younger? For example, my mom has played solitaire on an ipad for years before her dementia, so she has still retained that, and at this point the ipad is a bit of a safety blanket for her anyway. A lot of times the best success is had with things that are further back in their memories. i'm probably telling you nothing new here...

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harshedbuzz

Dementia care has a lot of challenging to downright gnarly aspects, but for many what you are describing can be the hardest.

The first part to finding your zen in caregiving is to develop empathy for your LO. I personally found this essay help me truly appreciate the changes caused by the disease progression from the PWD's perspective.

Smashwords – Understanding the Dementia Experience – a book by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller

It's important to understand that your mom's emotional intelligence will persist long after her memory and cognitive skills have been damaged. She will pick up on tone of voice and non-verbal communication long after she doesn't really understand much else.

That said, what you need is a break. Like many PWD she is no longer able to initiate a task or entertain herself, so she's looking to you. At some point, as her safe person, she may start to follow you around the house in a behavior called "shadowing". This sounds benign enough but can be crazy-making.

I would encourage you to look for a dementia day program to entertain her a couple days each week. It's best to present this as a volunteer position or seniors' club rather than respite for you. If this isn't doable, it would be prudent to hire a HHA to give you a break a few times a week. Perhaps you can create a fiblet suggesting that the aide is a friend coming to visit initially. If mom's stuck to you, you may need to leave during the time or send them off for a walk or out to lunch.

As the dementia worsens, many PWD struggle to follow the plots in TV programming. They may do better with old sitcoms, westerns, variety shows from when they were younger.

HB