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My mom is 89 and with pretty bad dementia, probably vascular dementia. We had to put her in a SNF because she is just too much to take care of and watch in the home. She is smart enough to get herself into trouble any number of ways.
Mom's dementia has regressed to about 2 or 3 years old and at this point she plays with baby dolls and looks for her Daddy. She doesn't recognize me but she doesn't recognize herself either. Thankfully she is doing OK in the SNF, is a chirpy type personality, and reads bible passages to those who want her to do so. So she still can do some things that bring herself and others pleasure. She heard me call her Mama and she concluded that I was her child and that made her feel good.
But I can visit and see the mental decline as one more part of her brain is affected.
Yesterday's visit was particularly hard on us both mostly because for the first time she really showed a neediness she hasn't shown before. She held my hand and did not want to let go. It hurt us both to leave and her vulnerability was so evident.
So very sorry, OP. Mental decline has to be the worst to deal with. To see our loved ones slipping away.
I know you didn't ask for advice, but have you tried playing music to her? You could look on the internet and find old videos to play for free. I do that for my Mom and sometimes she remembers the words. Most times not, but she still reacts to the music with a smile on her face.
In the last year of my Mom's life her memory started going. First short-term, then long-term memories.
One problem was that she forgot that I had been there as soon as I left the room. No matter how often I visited she would tell people that I hadn't been there in ages.
She also lost track of time. One evening when I was getting ready to leave she got upset and said, "But, you just arrived." I had actually been there for many hours.
One thing that helped at leaving time was to tell her a half hour before that I'd have to be leaving at that time. I would say it again every five or ten minutes until the appointed time. That would sometimes make it easier for her to say goodbye.
It's a terrible thing to watch in a loved one. OP, what is your mom's overall mood? I mean, does she seem unhappy when you first get there? The reason I'm asking is because my MIL eventually got to the point where the staff told us that maybe we didn't need to visit every day, because she had no concept of time and "out of sight out of mind." She'd be perfectly content and doing the activities or napping or whatever - then we'd show up and she'd remember who we were and she'd get clingy and then she'd cry when we left. After a few minutes she'd be back to normal.
But what we were inadvertently doing was actually upsetting her. She was happy to see us when we showed up, but it wasn't like she was missing us when we weren't there. In the last few weeks of her life, as the Alzheimer's really stripped her of the last of her personality, we visited every other day. Occasionally I would stop by and tiptoe into her room to see if she was sleeping (she nearly always was) and I wouldn't wake her up. What good would it do? She'd get overly excited and then she'd get so sad when it was time for me to go. It seemed like unnecessary emotional overload to me.
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