I have debated whether to write about this for some time, but maybe it will help others who are going through the same experience.
My 82-year-old mother was diagnosed at least 12 years ago with dementia. We don't know what caused it or how long it's actually been going on, but it really started manifesting itself a few years before her official diagnosis.
I bring this up now because for the first time in at least three or four years, she's having delusions again. Now this is at the same time funny and sad - funny because it's easier to laugh than cry. Sad because Mama is a fiercely independent and intelligent woman who has always taken the world on her own terms.
I noticed several weeks ago that she began talking about an elderly gentleman who lives in the same assisted living facility as she. She said he liked her, but she wasn't interested because he smokes and has Alzheimer's. Now, all of a sudden, she thinks she is married to this man (or getting married, depending on which story you get) and is outraged that we haven't invited him to Easter dinner. She absolutely gushes about how much she loves him. I decided to observe more closely to try and find out what's going on, so I took her to lunch the other day. In the middle of an otherwise uneventful lunch (during which she never brought up her gentleman friend), she blurted out that she had pulled a family friend out of a burning house 75 miles away the night before, then calmly added, "These vegetables are really good...they're crunchy," as if the needle had been picked up off a record album and set down in a different place.
I have dealt with this since the early 1990s, but I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to do. The experts say not to encourage the delusions, but not to challenge them either, because the delusional person is apt to become even more steadfast in her beliefs. Just nod politely and say, "Uh-huh," I guess.
Easier said than done when that person is your mother.
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1 comment:
Leanne, I also went thru this problem with my daddy, he had Parkinson's but some of the things are very much the same, all a form of dementia. He spent his last 4 years in a nursing home! This man was my hero and to see him go thru what he did, knowing at times his condition wasn't right , then not knowing who he was, so sad!
I now work in a Assisted Living building in Burlington at Twin Lakes Community and I see so many folks,that just break your heart and at the same time, give so much joy, if we just will let them. I think you're right about not challenging them, and just glean what ever you can from your mother and sometimes you just have to laugh out loud (inside) and say mother I agree with what you are saying.
I attended the Dale movie in Winston Salem on Monday, so many memories came back to me! As I mentioned above my Daddy was my hero, I lost him to Parkinson's in 1998, then I lost another hero and that was Larry Isley (the dirt track racer) not me; and then we lost Dale Earnhardt.
Hope this helps someone.
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