Father in law early stages , and visiting him soon

deeboe

Hi everyone! So glad I found this website right now. What a relief wow.

Story goes , my husband went to visit his parents in a different state last week. When he arrived, his brother pulled him aside and told him there father is starting to forget things, ask where he is, fighting with his wife and more.

Side note : My father-in laws sister just died of dementia about 3 months ago, so we all just went through this not so long ago. And the same signs are starting with him.

my husband called me from his parents house and is worried becuase his mom is getting very frustrated with him, and his brothers don’t seem to help? (From my husbands info)

I will be going out there next week. And I want to prepare myself as best as I can to help my husband and his father, and everyone over there! My husbands world will be over if this gets worst fast, or sees his family isn’t helping the way they should and I am scared for that.

What can I do to help my father in law feel comfortable in this new world he has to live in?! What can we do with him to help and make this as easy and we can.

Thank you all! 🙏🏼

towhee

Hello Deeboe, welcome to the forum. This particular forum does not get as many views or responses as some of the others. In the future you might want to post on the "Caring for a Parent" or "I am a Caregiver" forum. If you look under "Groups" you will find one called "New Caregiver Help" that has a lot of good information. The article "Understanding the Dementia Experience" is recommended for all potential caregivers to read, even if you are only doing occasional visits and phone calls.

Your mother in law getting frustrated with her husband is not at all unusual, neither is your brothers in law not quite knowing what to do. Although you may have had some experience with another family member, unless you were physically caring for them or financially responsible for them, having to now fill those roles requires learning a lot of new information in a hurry, and often you do not even know what you need to learn. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and nobody gets it "right" all the time, especially at first. Since you are long distance caregivers your job is to support the ones "on the ground" in whatever way they need. For your MIL, that might mean giving her some respite, helping her to destress, providing her with some info on living with a person with dementia, giving her space to think and information on financial and medical matters that will need to be taken care of. For the brothers, information and emotional support. You can support your husband in seeing that. Sometimes the people on the ground can get "stuck" and another viewpoint is helpful. What you want to avoid is saying "you should be doing it this way", and especially not "you should be doing this better". If you are not very careful, dementia will tear your family apart. For your father in law, learn about communication with a PWD. In that New Caregiver Help group there is a post on the "10 Dementia Absolutes", you might also look at youtube posts by "dementia Careblazers".

The first thing you need to do, if not done already, is to get your FIL to his primary care physician for a thorough check up. There are occasionally physical issues that can contribute to the symptoms you describe. Write a letter to his doctor detailing the things his family is seeing before the visit.

harshedbuzz

@deeboe

One issue that's common is for siblings to have very different views about parental care. This can happen for a lot of reasons. Sometimes a family dynamic plays into it where a sibling who was the favored child is reluctant to make any changes that would upset the parent even for safety reasons. Sometimes a sibling who had a difficult relationship with the non-demented parent doesn't have the appropriate level of empathy for the difficult situation at home.

One interesting spin is how siblings who are close-at-hand vs out-of-town parse the situation. Usually, the one who isn't providing scaffolding and assistance won't have the same sense of urgency as those with boots-on-the-ground.

But sometimes it works the other way too. Like your DH I didn't see dad very often because of distance, so his decline from visit to visit was stark in comparison to someone who saw him regularly. Sometimes PWD in the early and middle stages showtime which means they can seem perfectly fine on the surface for a shorter visit a local person might have. And sometimes PWD have behaviors that only those who live with them see because of the time of day when they happen. Because visiting my parents was never a daytrip, I spent at least 3 nights with them each time I visited which meant I saw dad's behavior on a 24-hour cycle and he wasn't able to maintain his showtiming. I have a dear friend who saw her mom who lived down the street daily for a couple hours daily. She was really late to be convinced mom's cognition was an issue as mom could hold it together for an hour of two and they only ever visited at friend's house in the afternoon which was a good time of day for her.

In terms of support. I would encourage your DH to have dad evaluated if this hasn't been done. There are treatable conditions that can mimic cognitive impairment/dementia. One of dad's dementias was treatable had it been diagnosed and managed earlier. When mom started to have memory issues, it turned out she had exposure to Lyme Disease. She's a bit better since treatment.

The other piece would be to get the legal paperwork in order. POAs and potentially Medicaid planning with a CELA if that not been done. Someone other than dad should mom's agent, btw.

IMO, supporting the primary caregiver is sometimes the best thing you can do for a PWD. Don't forget MIL.

HB