From 1987 through 2006 (with the last year spend in furlough) I was a missionary in Asia. I am the youngest of 4, the only one unmarried/not a parent. My dad passed away in February 2001. A few days before he died, he spoke to two of my sibs and told them he was concerned about my mom and her "memory problems".

In November 2005 I came back to the US for what was meant to be a missionary furlough - a one year time of rest and renewal to enable me to go back and continue in my calling. And I was just honestly and totally burned out in ministry.

However, a few months after I got back, my mom (who had exhibited clear signs of dementia) fell ill with Pulmonari Emboli. She spent 11 days in the hospital, during which she ripped out her IV line 6 times, threw her heart monitor in the garbage can, accused her Cardiologist of being a cannibal, told her GP she was the head of a conspiracy of keeping her confined, and thought her Pulmonologist was the Bishop JD Jakes. The poor respiratory therapy girl was asked "Have the layed the body out yet?" when she thought she was at a funeral home, and then at the end, was ordered "Hey - you take those goats with you when you leave - you brought them in". Poor girl - I think she was in her early 20's.

Mom was diagnosed with Dementia after that. Well, that was a late diagnosis. She should have been diagnosed back in 2001, or earlier, since my dad had mentioned it to my sibs.

So now, my new calling is to my mom. As her caregiver. I'm new at learning how to be a caregiver, a GOOD one.

Please help me out with any advice you can give. Mom goes to the Senior Center every morning at 8:30 and stays until about noon. But when she gets home, she is antsy and keeps moving stuff from one place to the other.

She isn't incontinent yet - at least to the point that she doesn't know it. Often I see pairs of her panties in the bathroom hanging up to dry. If she is making a mess in her pants, she at least knows to take care of it herself.

The hard thing is when she gets sick - yesterday she had a fever, and she said to me "I hope Desi and Lucy don't get hurt when they play football" (she had watched "I Love Lucy" re-runs earlier on in the day)

I'm also having trouble getting her to shower. She hasn't washed her hair in about 10 days, but she keeps brushing it out and spraying it so it looks "nice".

My mom is stubborn. She doesn't like me telling her what to do. She has called me "Hateful" before.

Egads. Help.

Dear Intrepid,
Bless your dear soul and your dear Mom. What a labor of
love you have taken on. I'm afraid I was only a hands-on
caregiver for my Dad for a few months--now he lives in an
ALF about a mile from me, so I act more as a care manager.
So I don't have some of the nitty-gritty answers that some of
the others on this board will have. I hope you can find the
support, comfort, and occasional wisdom that you need here.
Are you in an area where there are caregiving groups that
meet? That might be very helpful for you, too. They would
hopefully have a list of possibilities at your Mom's day center.
Good luck, and I hope to see you often.
Carol

Hi Intrepid - I feel your pain. It's so hard to watch our LO's deteriorate before our very eyes. I took care of my mom for just about 2 years after my dad died suddenly in 2005. She passed peacefully in her sleep on November 2.

When Mom first moved in with me and my family, the adjustments were huge. I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. She fought me about showers, washing her hair, medications - you name it and it became a battle.

I overcame the shower situation by redying everything in the bathroom for the occasion. Before I took Mom into the bathroom, I got all of her clothes ready, her towels, soaps, etc. I made sure the bathroom was warm. And then I would simply say, "OK, it's time for your shower." She would often grimace but I ignored it and would start talking about happy things (stuff my kids were up to, what my nephews have been doing, etc). It didn't matter what we talked about because 9 times out of 10, she didn't remember if we had talked about it before.

Many times I would chatter away as I was helping her undress and wash. I had a shower chair and a hand held nozzle to make it as easy as possible.

I found the art of redirection to be the single best tool I could use. When she said she didn't want to shower, I said I understood but she really needed to and would just help her into the bathroom. When she said she didn't want to wash her hair, I overcame the objection by saying I would do it for her and she could help me by holding the shampoo bottle, etc. The key was to help her to feel safe and warm. Mom was also very modest so there were times she showered with a towel draped over her lap. It made a mess, but at least she felt comfortable and the task was accomplished.

Good luck and I hope this helps a little.

Welcome Intrepid. I am sole caregiver for my mother. So much of what you said sounds so familiar. My mother is in relatively good health so the hospital episode your mother experienced is out of my league. The problem I am having is that Mom is so "needy". I can't have a private phone conversation, or go to the bathroom without her being right there. Right now as I type this she is standing next to me. If I am in my bedroom for something she has to follow me. I sometimes get very short with her. I feel terrible afterward, but it still happens. She is obsessed with the people and cars across the street. So, yes I know about becoming a caregiver by trial and error.

Keep coming back. I know I do and it has helped.

Welcome, Intrepid.

I was caregiver to my mom, the last 18 months in my home, before she completed her journey on Oct. 18, 2007. I was one of the lucky ones who had a very compliant and easygoing "patient." She rarely fought me over bathing, hair, medication, etc.

Hospitalization is very confusing to a person with dementia with all the new people, sights, sounds, surroundings.....and they usually calm down once they are back home (wherever home is.) Getting back into a "routine" helps tremendously and she should respond well to that.

Redirection is a very useful "tool" especially when questions become irritatingly repetitious, or behavior is troublesome. It doesn't always work, but because of the short term memory loss it usually does.

You can find a lot of good information about AD and tips on how to cope from the Alzheimer's Association website: www.alz.org. It also has message boards and you need not "join" to read posts. Twice Blessed (screenname) has posted a lot of general info and tips and you can find her posts using the "search" function at that site.

You will learn your mother is unique in her AD and will never be a textbook case -- there is no such animal. She will easily slip back and forth between stages and you learn very quickly to just go with the flow (because you can't explain or argue with your ADLO -- it just doesn't compute in their brain.)

Learn as much as you can. Ask as many questions as you have. Come back here frequently for info and lots of support and understanding. Because we DO understand and know what it's like. We're on the same path and get it like no one else.

You are a wonderful daughter to take on this challenge and you will be truly enriched by this experience.

It's so good to get so many different perspectives and read about how each of you handle your LO and their particular "AD Quirks" (? is that the right word?) Right around 2:30 or 3 everyday mom starts looking for the kids. I need to figure out how to respond and redirect for at least a couple of hours........

"I Love Lucy" helps. God bless "TV Land". I think God would even bless them more if they had reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" on from 2-5 pm everyday. Then the news comes on..... We'd be set!

I called by three sibs together about a month ago and told them flat out that I am going bat crap crazy and they need to help me out with one day off per week. They all have families, but they also have a mother. And I need to find some sort of life outside of mom's for my own mental, social, emotional and spiritual health. Not to mention physical health...... as I've had a few chest pains lately. (being overweight and smoking doesn't help much in that area, though)

They all agreed and told me to make up a calendar and they'd get signed up on Saturdays. So far I've had 3 Saturdays "off" so far. The first one, my brother came and got mom early morning and brought her back right after dinner.

The next one my sister took her Christmas shopping and to visit her brother. Brought her back around dinner.

Today, my brother came and got her with 3 of his small kids (the LOUDEST ONES), stayed for about 45 minutes, and then took her to lunch for a couple of hours. Came back to the house. Stayed for a couple more hours. So I really only got 2 hours off today. But hey, it was 2 hours. And I feel kinda guilty about getting some time off when so many folks here don't get a free minute to themselves, much less an hour! MUCH LESS A WHOLE DAY!

My challenge is to find a giant spatula that will come and flip me out off of my rear end and out of the house. Mom can be left alone for a bit, as long as it's not around the magic 2 PM mark.

Her personality and mine are totally different - she loves getting out and about, going here and there, socializing with people. I am more like my late father, who, as long as he had a ready supply of books at hand (or the History Channel) and a ready source of hot cups of coffee, he was just fine with not moving for hours. And he passionately hated going shopping with my mother. I have inherited that gene from him.

I am very thankful and appreciative of my sibs and their commitment to working with me to care for mom. They are all finding themselves out of their comfort zone when it's just them and her, and I know it's hard on them. But bless them mightily for pitching in.

If you all have any ideas or suggestions about what my sibs can do with my mom for a day outing, please - we can use all the good ideas you got!

Wow - just now got a call from my other brother saying that he was coming to take mom to lunch tomorrow. This sib hasn't yet taken her out for a whole day, so maybe this can ease him into it little by little. It's the second time he's even taken her out in the last two years, just him and his two boys (who are autistic), his girlfriend, and her. He's going to have a multi-dimensional challenge, I think. But God bless him for stepping up to the plate!

Oh my Gosh, Intrepid, I am soooo impressed with
how you are dealing with family (sibling) dynamics!
You go girl!!!

Carol