Supporting my mum who is caring for my grandad with dementia.

RosiePerrett

My grandad (94) has dementia and recently has been aggressive and showing a lot of anger towards my mum. He is in a dementia nursing home and a few weeks ago was moved from one room in the home to another room right next to the nurses desk as he was falling over regularly (this was recommended by the doctor for his safety). He is still very angry at my mum for moving him and doesn’t believe she did it to keep him safe in case he falls over again. She visits him every day but since the move he has been saying he hopes he never sees her again and that she is evil for moving him against his will (he had agreed to the move prior to being moved). However, he then will call her many times in a row only to say how he is disappointed in her and never wants to see her again. We know that it is the disease talking and not him but it is distressing to see him talk to her like that and it’s difficult to know what the best approach to calm him down is. Any advice for what to say or do to calm him down, explaining that the move was for his safety isn’t working?

I’m looking for ways to support my mum through this. Have people had a positive experience with this support page and do you think I should recommend her to sign up to it? Also, what resources have you found that have been helpful in supporting a LO with dementia? Any links would be greatly appreciated!! :)

Emily 123

Your grandad is probably beyond the point of being able to apply logic to a situation-the part of the brain that is affected also handles the abilities to reason, to mediate emotions, and to use good judgement. The move has upset him because he has no way to understand what's going on--he'd need a working memory to do that. Because his memory doesn't work well, he can't store information about why he's in a new room-he's confused and upset, and so will call your mom. And...he doesn't remember he's called her. So while she picks up 20 calls, he thinks the one he's making right now is the first time he's called her.

So-it's ok for your mom to not pick up every call, and she can end the call if she chooses to pick up & the conversation starts to slide downhill. Same with visits-she doesn't need to go every day, and if her going triggers his anger, it will be ok for both of them if she doesn't visit as much while he gets settled. As well, she should stop trying to reason with him-it won't work. Why not just tell him he was moved because his old room had a water leak, or is getting painted? It's ok to tell fiblets if it soothes your person.

For me, finding this community and reading about people's experiences and solutions to problems was invaluable. Send her this way!

A good basic primer is this pdf: https://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/210580/2/understanding-the-dementia-experience/Medium,Arial,Black,White,One-and-a-Half

The Teepa Snow videos on YouTube are excellent, and the algorhythm will load more.

I believe Iris started a thread for helpful books here: https://alzconnected.org/discussion/65171/books-about-alzheimers-disease#latest