She's Killin Me Here ... Could Use Some Tips on Living With the Elderly

Demon 408 said

Leanna,

My Mom has dementia; it comes on slowly and only gets worse with time. Google dementia (look for a good medical site to research) and see if the symptoms describe your mother-in-law’s behavior. Mom got so bad we had to place her in a care facility for the elderly, she resides in the dementia ward. She will be 90 in a few weeks and her dementia really didn’t start until this last year, mostly because of falls and sickness.

My father passed away in 1997, my parents were married over 50 years. It took my Mom over a year to get through the grief; she was in her mid-70s at that time. Mom had depression pretty bad for quite some time.

She would come and stay with us for months back when she was healthier. She lives in Michigan, that's where I was raised and all my siblings still live there. So my brother and I would do the "blue hair transfer" to give my brother a break. Mom didn't suffer from dementia back then, but she could be a bit of a pain at times...I guess that's just the way some old folks can get.

Tell Billy he may want to take her to the family doctor to get he checked for the confusion (seeing people who are not there) and checked for possible depression.

Good luck.

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My wife and I are going through the same issues with my mother-in-law and Demon is correct. This sounds like the onset of dementia and she needs to have a doctor's visit to confirm. This will be a difficult thing to go through. We walk in and she doesn't recognize us or gets us confused with her siblings. Start asking her things like if she knows what year it is or she can spell the name of the town she is in. Working with her to do mental exercises will help slow the progress. You need to also start monitoring her medication closely. They tend to lose track of time and will either over or under medicate themselves.

You also need to search out your own happiness during this. There is a lot of guilt around the decision of putting them in a nursing home. I strongly urge you to search out support groups for yourself during this as it is difficult. I wish you success in finding your way through this.

Prayer helps. So does a good sense of humor... We may be a bit deranged but we kind of find it funny that my mother-in-law is actually quite pleasant when she is being a space cadet with Buck Rogers. She is pretty foul tempered when she recognizes us.