Okay, all.  My mother has the beginning of senile dementia and forgets a lot of what she does during the day.  I find this most frustrating and hard emotionally.  She lives at home with my brother, his wife and myself and we all help take care of her.  This is difficult as she often cannot even remember what she ate or what day it is.  She sometimes asks the same question over and over.


My question to you all is this:

My grandma's kind of gone loopy recently too. She gets overwhelmed and frustrated at herself for forgetting the most trivial things, and sometimes she thinks I'm my cousin, even though she's 10 years older and we look nothing alike.

I've found that's it's best to just be patient. Encourage her to write things down so she can look over them later and feel like she's still in the loop. It may be frustrating to deal with her, but it's much more frustrating to be the one who feels like you're losing your mind/ can't remember things you know you should be able to. Make use of a big calendar so that she can keep track of what days she goes places/does things so that she can have a visual to try to help her straighten out what she's done and intends to do so that she doesn't forget she wants to go out the next day to do whatever. Also, if she takes medication, be sure to help her remember! My grandma was on loads of crap at one point and my grandpa made a calender just for her medication, with the name of the pill and time she's supposed to take it, and encouraged her to take them in front of the calendar so she could mark down that she took them so she wouldn't do it again later. And then cross out each day before bed so she could keep up to date without being confused.

It's a sucky thing to go through and to deal with, I know how irritating it gets. My mom was beside herself with worry and frustration, but luckily my grandma is taking something now that seems to be helping her to remember things and not stress out. I don't know if that's an option for your mother, but I hope things get better, or you can all adjust and help her ease into this new stage.

KG :

   Thanks.  She already does write things down, lots of things.  She does have a big calendar and we encourage her to write what she needs to do down.  You are right.  Being on the other end is immensely worse.  I really appreciate your feedback and feel a little better after reading what you wrote. 

Sincerely,

Phil Sims