N
Newboy
If anybody is involved with caring for somebody with Alzheimer's disease you might find the link below of some use - a personal viewpoint rather than a medical viewpoint.
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durhamplumber
Relax.take it as it comes.laugh it off.deal with it...about all you can do with any ultimately terminal diease.
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sodthisforfun
Alzheimers I think is harder on the carer once it really takes hold. Horrible disease, very cruel.
E
EddieM
probably the most cruel disease of all..
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durhamplumber
Indeed..I could weep for some of my customers with wives in nursing homes..There eyes light up and they are so happy if their wife remembers them...Other times their wife does not recognise them..Heartbreaking.Some visit every day for years.That is LOVE
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Brigade77
One of my favourite uncles had late stage alzheimers & was in care when his wife of 60+yrs died. My cousin asked that anybody visiting him was to say "She's popped out to the shops" if he ever asked about his wife. Sadly, this caused quite a rift in the family but if you've ever had experience of someone you care about sufferring from this horrible illness then you can understand why this was the best approach.
I see it every day, my father in law has lewy body dementia.
Im going on holiday with my in laws end of next week, it will almost certainly be his last holiday.
Lewy bodys is protein that get into the cells in the brain.
What happens is step by step random areas of the brain have reduced function.
The brain works kind of like a computer processor, as function reduces, the brain acts like a single channel through put, so if a high cognitive demand happens, all functions in the brain stall.
So my father in law when sitting down often gets half way, then his brain cant tall his leg muscels to let go, so his brain freezes and he might be frozen middway for 3 or 4 minutes.
It can take him 2 hours to eat lunch
Sometimes he falls asleep during breakfast, and drops his tea
He regularly falls over and has had nasty cuts to his head
2 weeks ago he went out and got lost, luckily we found him before dark
Sadly he cant talk much, just a few words, usually he finds it easiest to repeat what youve said.
I try really hard to chat to him, but its difficult to have any conversation without making it patronising.
One thing that is sort of funny is he 'mends things', which really means sabotaging them.
So far he managed to cut through the garage door cable, take apart the doorbell, stop the mower working, throw away stuff like camera chargers, undd computer cables etc etc.
Theres a reason why its called the long goodbye.
Its certainly not memory loss, its total brain failure, a slow shut down of all cognitive and physical functions
Im going on holiday with my in laws end of next week, it will almost certainly be his last holiday.
Lewy bodys is protein that get into the cells in the brain.
What happens is step by step random areas of the brain have reduced function.
The brain works kind of like a computer processor, as function reduces, the brain acts like a single channel through put, so if a high cognitive demand happens, all functions in the brain stall.
So my father in law when sitting down often gets half way, then his brain cant tall his leg muscels to let go, so his brain freezes and he might be frozen middway for 3 or 4 minutes.
It can take him 2 hours to eat lunch
Sometimes he falls asleep during breakfast, and drops his tea
He regularly falls over and has had nasty cuts to his head
2 weeks ago he went out and got lost, luckily we found him before dark
Sadly he cant talk much, just a few words, usually he finds it easiest to repeat what youve said.
I try really hard to chat to him, but its difficult to have any conversation without making it patronising.
One thing that is sort of funny is he 'mends things', which really means sabotaging them.
So far he managed to cut through the garage door cable, take apart the doorbell, stop the mower working, throw away stuff like camera chargers, undd computer cables etc etc.
Theres a reason why its called the long goodbye.
Its certainly not memory loss, its total brain failure, a slow shut down of all cognitive and physical functions
N
Newboy
We've got one relative who just stops and almost 'disappears' for a few minutes as they go into an overload and cannot process the world around them.
My mother-in-law went through this phase - she got it into her head that she had to start changing fuses in every plug she saw, sometimes forgetting to put a replacement fuse in, sometimes forgetting to put the plug back together so putting the plug back in the sockets with exposed internals. Same thing with anything with batteries in - replace all the batteries with random objects or batteries in random order. We've spent a lot of time 'proofing' the house against accidents and removing sockets (replaced with fused spurs) - she's quite happy with this as she's not aware of the change.
Thank God we've got so called "happy dementia" cases - we all smile and find something to laugh about to take the pain out of the situation.
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Well Durham plumber I've seen a different side to you on your post .........empathy is a very admirable quality. I salute you.
Dealing with my late mother in law she has vascular dementia was a nightmare ......and the care system ....horrendous.
Until we got a adult safeguarding social worker that was worth ten times her salary that picked up the cudgels for us.
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durhamplumber
Very sad and hard for all involved..Something especially awful about diseases that take ones personality and memory away.
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durhamplumber
Sorry to hear that..My gran ended up with that.For weeks before she died she never opened her eyes,the hallucinations became so bad.
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My mother in law has been in care for two years now with Alzheimers. I don't think we could have coped with her at home. The care home she is in is a fantastic place although it is very expensive. Luckily we are in a position to be able to afford it or at least my mother in law is. It is eating into her assets though. We are not worried about the money as such other than the fact that she, and her husband before, paid massive amounts of money into the system, as have we over the years, and now she has to fend for herself money wise with the help of my wife. My wife is an only child and her mother is her only close relative left. My mother in law is completely oblivious to our world and seems as happy as Larry in her world but it is taking huge tolls on my wife and to some extent me. the government, in their wisdom, have deemed that we can have £80 a week to help with her care and we had to fight tooth and nail to get that.
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sodthisforfun
There's very little care system nowadays and it's made as difficult as possible.
My father in law looked after his wife who had alzheimer's and did it all on his own until we could sell up and move nearer. Anyway, MIL fell twice in a short period of time and broke then shattered her hip and was in hospital twice. She'd not recovered or regained her strength from the first fall, let alone the second. She became very frail, couldn't walk without being in pain. She wasn't eating or drinking at Whipps Cross hospital because of having alzheimer's and the staff just didn't care/have the time to make sure she was eating or on the road to recovery, instead left her in bed all day and night to get weaker. Cue rows with nurses by us once we realised. Anyway, in the time she was in hospital after the second fall, my FIL who was 81 at the time had a small stroke and then heart attack and a pacemaker fitted, within 2 weeks at Queens hospital in Romford.
Whipps Cross decided to discharge his wife back into his care when he was 2 days out of hospital himself. He was under instructions not to look after his wife until he was strong. I remember going up to the hospital the day before she was due to be discharged and arguing with the staff, physio therapist and social services and they all refused to budge. No help, no physio for his wife, no care package and no nursing home for a month for his wife for them to both recover with a little rest and help which is really what was needed. I'll never forget the cold, uncaring hospital staff and social services, it was a real eye opener. We ended up being forced to put MIL in a care home at our expense of nearly a grand a week while I looked after FIL and she died just 2 weeks later. I wrote and complained to the hospital and to social services and my father in law got an apology and his money back as well as a 'lessons have been learned' type response. Shallow words as am sure this is happening up and down the country.
My father in law looked after his wife who had alzheimer's and did it all on his own until we could sell up and move nearer. Anyway, MIL fell twice in a short period of time and broke then shattered her hip and was in hospital twice. She'd not recovered or regained her strength from the first fall, let alone the second. She became very frail, couldn't walk without being in pain. She wasn't eating or drinking at Whipps Cross hospital because of having alzheimer's and the staff just didn't care/have the time to make sure she was eating or on the road to recovery, instead left her in bed all day and night to get weaker. Cue rows with nurses by us once we realised. Anyway, in the time she was in hospital after the second fall, my FIL who was 81 at the time had a small stroke and then heart attack and a pacemaker fitted, within 2 weeks at Queens hospital in Romford.
Whipps Cross decided to discharge his wife back into his care when he was 2 days out of hospital himself. He was under instructions not to look after his wife until he was strong. I remember going up to the hospital the day before she was due to be discharged and arguing with the staff, physio therapist and social services and they all refused to budge. No help, no physio for his wife, no care package and no nursing home for a month for his wife for them to both recover with a little rest and help which is really what was needed. I'll never forget the cold, uncaring hospital staff and social services, it was a real eye opener. We ended up being forced to put MIL in a care home at our expense of nearly a grand a week while I looked after FIL and she died just 2 weeks later. I wrote and complained to the hospital and to social services and my father in law got an apology and his money back as well as a 'lessons have been learned' type response. Shallow words as am sure this is happening up and down the country.
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The NHS and care system should work on you paying in over the decades and then when its required you can access the services without fear of going bankrupt. The service is not a funded service in the sense there is a pot of money which you can dip into. It requires younger people to enter the workforce and replace those who are leaving it. The problem has become more people are living longer and young people are earning less in relation to rising costs - namely housing. Something has to give and so care services are cut to the bone.
Another solution is to have greater immigration, so the working age population increases but then those same old people who are against this are the ones who will benefit from immigration the most - by foreigners doing jobs UK born will not do and these foreigners paying into the system which most likely they will not withdraw from.
Another solution is to have greater immigration, so the working age population increases but then those same old people who are against this are the ones who will benefit from immigration the most - by foreigners doing jobs UK born will not do and these foreigners paying into the system which most likely they will not withdraw from.
I have two cousins whose mothers both developed Parkinsons and then Dementia.
Terrible diseases, and as has been said before a very 'long goodbye'...
One had a pot of money, and lingered around for a long time.
The total cost to her was in the region of £450k before she got down to the paltry amount you are allowed to have before you don't have to pay.
The other had virtually nothing, and thus paid nothing!
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