My mother’s sense of time is a wreck. She can still read a clock, and she has one of those digital day / date clocks (which she loves), so she is able to know what day and time it is in the moment. However, her sense of how long anything is or lasts or might take is shot. For a 1:30 PM appointment, she started fussing about leaving at 10 AM, and insisted it would take an hour to get there (it was a ten-minute drive). Every single time we speak to her, she says she hasn’t slept in “four or five days” - always that exact time. She has in-home aides who come T/Th/Sat every week, but often tells us she hasn’t seen anyone in “weeks.” What’s painful is that she will angrily tell me she hasn’t heard anything from my brother in “months” when he in fact calls her every week (he lives in Europe). She will go into a rant about the assisted living facility she was in (she will refer to it only as “that prison”) for “three years” she was there for precisely one year to the day and was so miserable and impossible there that we moved her. She complains that my sister “never ever calls,” when she does in fact call regularly. It’s very hard for all of us because this distortion of time plus forgetting makes her angry and nasty and blames us all and complains angrily all the time. It doesn’t seem to be any use to try to say, in the moment, “No, Mom, you just spoke to him the day before yesterday” or “But Mom, Sally was just here yesterday and will be back tomorrow.” It wouldn’t be that big a deal except the misunderstanding makes her so NASTY about everyone, and she uses it to complain about all of us to each other. We sibs all get what’s going on, fortunately, but what is a reasonable way to respond / de-escalate in the moment when she starts in? It’s getting very tiresome and frustrating.
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My Mom was visiting her SIL, who had ALZ. When she was walking out she ran into SILs sister (both my Aunts). When SILs sister got to her room she said "I see P was visiting u". SiL said, "P was not here". Sometimes people suffering from Dementia remember people when they are young, not the older version.
I find it fascinating how people who have no short term memory are able to remember things from long ago. I have seen this in people before as well. It’s interesting how the brain can separate like this.
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You cannot reason with a brain that no longer works. It will drive YOU batty.
My MIL is slowly sinking into total lack of time/space. If you ask her when she stopped driving she'll state that she was still driving 5 months ago. When in fact, we sold her car 5 years ago.
She has trouble remembering if she took her meds, so she frequently 'double dips'. This alone has wreaked some havoc as she gets really stoned on double doses of Xanax. She can't follow the instructions on the bottles, and even the pill minder is beyond her.
Writing something down means nothing to her. She might be able to read it, but it doesn't make sense to her.
She insists, and has for the last 45 years, that she has never slept. Never. AND the reason is b/c I came into the family and the worry that I would leave my kids for her to raise kept her so anxious she was unable to sleep.
Can't read a clock. Can't turn the TV on or off or change channels.
My Dh had a mini-cog eval at his yearly exam and he was so mad. Of course he sailed through it b/c it's not HARD, but it's giving his doc a baseline. He did comment that his mother would not have been able to answer a single question or do a single task.
For the first time, I think he realizes he's not going to 'fix' her.
And yes, she lives alone. With one drop in from one of the kids at some point in the evening. She doesn't get out of bed until 1 or 2 pm, so her day starts late and ends early. She has no business being all alone, but that's what she wants and she GETS what she wants. Period.
DH says she can talk endlessly about things that happened 40 years ago--but what happened yesterday or today--nope, no short term memory at all.
Prepare yourself to fly back to where mom lives when there's a crisis so you can get her placed in Memory Care Assisted Living where she'll be safe, fed, bathed and properly cared for every day. Build up your strength now for the nasty and mean insults she'll hurl at you when you have to move her, bc this is nothing.
I dealt with my mother for nearly 3 years in Memory Care Assisted Living, with advanced dementia, and 4 years prior in regular AL, and 3.5 years prior to that, with dad, in Independent Living, complaining about everything under the sun CONTINUOUSLY. One time I had to go to Wal Mart and buy 8 pairs of shoes for her, most in men's sizes, bc her feet were SO swollen that none of her regular shoes fit. This was during Covid. The aide met me at the front door, took the shoes, tried them on mom, and brought me back the rejects. Which I returned to Wal Mart immediately. This was a day after I bought her a pair of specialty shoes from a shoe store that were too small and had to be returned. And a week before I brought her socks from Target that were "tooooo toooooo tight" and had to be returned for special diabetic socks I ordered from Amazon. And the bras. Omg the 12 bras I brought her from Kohls to try on to pick the ones she liked best and bring back the rest. Until she decided ONLY sports bras would work. Which led me to burn rubber to Target to buy up ALL of their stock of sports bras in XL and drop them off at the MC with a special message for mom: NO MORE BRAS FOR YOU EVER AGAIN MA. This is it. Wear these or go braless.
I won't even mention the New Bed Debacle which caused me to grind my teeth down to nubs.
I could go on and on about running on fumes for real and the ugliness I listened to that spewed out of her mouth while I was running myself ragged to get her what she needed.
I wished I lived 1000 miles away and only had to deal with phone calls complaining about her lack of understanding about time. Or the fact that I NEVER visited her and she was sooooooo lonely, when I was there all the time, even standing outside in the snow talking to her on the phone during Covid, while she was warm and relaxed behind the window, sitting on a nice leather chair, screeching WHAT???? a thousand times bc she was basically deaf but definitely did NOT need a hearing aid.
Not to discount your irritation, but you ain't seen nuthin yet. CBD gummies WITH THC do help with frustration and aggravating situations. I wish you good luck and Godspeed with the major heartburn that lies ahead for you.
1) Agree, do not argue
2) Divert, do not attempt to reason
3) Distract, do not shame
4) Reassure, do not lecture
5) Reminisce, do not ask “Do you remember…?”
6) Repeat, do not say “I told you”
7) Do what they can do, don’t say “you can’t”
8) Ask, do not demand
9) Encourage, do not condescend
10) Reinforce, never force
The interaction goal should be to keep them as calm and peaceful as possible because they are less and less able to bring themselves to this state on their own.
Things will only get worse, so the best thing you can do is to just go along with whatever she is saying. If she says she hasn't talked to any of your siblings this week, you just say that you'll give them a call to find out why.
And if she says that you need to leave at 10:00 for a 1:30 appointment, you tell her that yes I know we should be leaving soon and just keep doing what you're doing. You have to remember that logic doesn't live here anymore, so no use trying to correct her or argue with her.
But really in ALL honesty, if you only have aides coming in on Tues. Thurs. and Sat. you know in your heart of hearts that mom needs way more hands on care than that.
I hope you have a plan B in place as you know your mom will only continue to get worse. You're looking at either 24/7 paid caregivers staying with her at home or placing her in a memory care facility.
I would be more concerned about her decline than I would be about how to respond to her comments.
I don’t think there is anything that you could say to her that will change her opinion on how she feels. I am sure that all of you are exhausted at this point in time.
Wishing you and your family all the best.
"Gee, mom I am sorry you have not slept well. You must be tired."
"Sorry you are not sleeping well we can talk to the doctor next time we go"
"I am sure Bobby is busy with work, that must be why he has not called"
"I talked to Bobby yesterday and he said he will call you later"
"Sorry the helper lady has not been in to help you out, I will give her a call to make sure she is ok."
"I will call the home aide and ask why she has not been in to see you."
"I know you did not like that place you were in that is why you are not there any more."
Another option for you would be to try to ignore all the comments, wear headphones if you have to.
Do not argue, make comments, contradict her any of these will just upset her and frustrate you.
What you can do is talk to her doctor about medication that will help with her anxiety.
My concern is that she is living alone and clearly should not be.