David Craig, on July 2nd, 2015Not really time to research and write a blog today as I have a family situation to deal with. The joys of having a parent with dementia:
Still perhaps I should look on the bright side:
– the mother of one person I know has just been turfed out of a nursing home for going berserk and trashing her room and she’s in her eighties
– the father of another person used to attack him kicking and hitting him every time he went to visit
– another got his daughter to rush all the way from London to Wales because of a disaster he couldn’t cope with. It turned out he just got confused about which day the gardener was coming
– another had his father-in-law come to visit. His father-in-law drove a couple of hours, almost reached his son-in-law’s house, went round the local roundabout a couple of times and then drove straight home as he couldn’t remember why he was in his car
– and one woman’s mother did start taking her clothes off and wandering naked along the road.
Given these incidents, I guess I should count myself lucky that my mother hasn’t yet started on any of these games.
Category: 
I suspect we will all soon have a parent with dementia. Doctors and hospitals can keep almost anyone alive whatever their physical condition. However, because the likelihood of getting dementia increases exponentially with age, few people in their 90’s escape.
As one of those nearing ninety, I can only say to those who are a lot younger.
” Look what is waiting for you round the corner!”
Dementia is no laughing matter. My wife began to show signs of it around 70. It progressed to the point that she could not communicate in sentences and finally only with sounds. She finally became violent, which comes toward the end usually, and had to be put into a secure nursing home. As it turns out, she had cancer of the colon which metastasized to her stomach and finally lungs. She is bound to have been in pain but did not communicate such to myself or any caregiver.
The point of this story is, if your loved one becomes unable to communicate verbally, be observant. They need more than just to be fed and bathed. Watch for signs of disease and the like also.