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Dementia, one positive.


pigeon controller
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2 hours ago, panoma1 said:

In many situations, family members don’t want to do anything practical to help, but want a say in it.......and are last in line to contribute.......but are first in line when there is some gain to be had!

Where there’s a will there’s a relative”

its amazing how your own family desert you.........my wifes 2 sons want nothing to do with her.because 10 years ago when she had cancer and the start of dementia she dropped wind in the sons new car.........and when they found out my will and her's had been made out totally in favour of my daughter......well that was the last straw for them........

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32 minutes ago, Grandalf said:

Ye Gods Spandit - You are in a bad way friend.

Hope it turns for the better soon.

I'm hoping she's just got an infected bite or scratch which is giving her a lump and that the other bit they saw on the X-ray was innocuous and not bone cancer. Aside from being a bit subdued (still getting over anaesthetic) she has a waggy tail.

Father was pretty good tonight. Didn't need as much help as before. Easy to hope it's an upwards trend but I expect he'll regress again soon. It would just be nicer if he was mobile enough so that we could go out in the car locally as if I'm home alone with him, I'm very much housebound.

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16 minutes ago, spandit said:

I'm hoping she's just got an infected bite or scratch which is giving her a lump and that the other bit they saw on the X-ray was innocuous and not bone cancer. Aside from being a bit subdued (still getting over anaesthetic) she has a waggy tail.

Father was pretty good tonight. Didn't need as much help as before. Easy to hope it's an upwards trend but I expect he'll regress again soon. It would just be nicer if he was mobile enough so that we could go out in the car locally as if I'm home alone with him, I'm very much housebound.

Housebound...........ive been housebound for 10 years now.............the only thing that has kept me going is the thought that soon she will go finally into care and i will get a few years back of my life.........i have so much to look forward to now ....but so little time..........

you are not alone spandit.....

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3 minutes ago, spandit said:

I know I'm not alone, seems to be an all too common occurrence. Hoping to meet a local dementia group on Thursday if I can get him out of the house...

i did that.............she enjoyed it..............i hated it...it made me really down as it was her times 20...........couldnt leave her there as their insurance wouldnt cover it......

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45 minutes ago, spandit said:

I'll give it a go. It's more for meeting other carers really to get some tips and support. We're fortunate that money isn't much of an issue and we have the space to build him a custom accessible annexe on the side, although the council aren't overly keen.

as you say give it a go............he will enjoy himself and have a laugh and it will make you feel good for him............i hated being there as i have it up to my neck with the demented 24/7 365 days a year...........all i ever wanted was a break ...which i never got..............but take him ....he will have a laugh:good:

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My aunt died in November, she would have been 102 had she lasted another couple of weeks. She had dementia fairly minor dementia really in the scheme of things. She didn't know us in the end though.

However, she decended into a really happy sort of never never land where long dead relatives still visited her and she was able to inhabit it with great joy. Who knows what is reality after all  when it comes to it?

She died happy and content in her own little world. Now I am not a spiritualist by any stretch of the term but seeing her in her last days talking to people who were apparently there but had been dead for years was unbelievably unsettling for me.

I still don't know now what I think really  .   

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6 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

My aunt died in November, she would have been 102 had she lasted another couple of weeks. She had dementia fairly minor dementia really in the scheme of things. She didn't know us in the end though.

However, she decended into a really happy sort of never never land where long dead relatives still visited her and she was able to inhabit it with great joy. Who knows what is reality after all  when it comes to it?

She died happy and content in her own little world. Now I am not a spiritualist by any stretch of the term but seeing her in her last days talking to people who were apparently there but had been dead for years was unbelievably unsettling for me.

I still don't know now what I think really  .   

nice story.......nice way to go .........:good:

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Only experience I've had of dementia was third hand. Friend of a friends mother had it. He was totally unsympathetic. Truth be told he was one of life's most ignorant people I'd ever known. He decided to inflict himself on us for a beer one night. Shortly after joining my mate and myself he announced "I've given her it "Given who what''? I asked. Turns out his elderly mother who has dementia and had been having a rough time so he punched her in the face. How he had the nerve to tell us is beyond me (I did say he was ignorant).

Anyhow I blew up and let him have it (verbally) did want to punch him but kept control. The bar was quite full. Did tell him his mother was ill with dementia and she did not ask for it and does not deserve treating that way. Also told him it was hereditry(sic) (its not I believe) and he would get it  when he was older. 

Between that piece of info and the hostile glares of the pub crowd he did a hasty one. Never seen him since.

To all the posters above I don't know how you all do what you do it's nothing short of amazing. you have all earned your place in heaven (if you believe such things). 

And this topic should get a thread of the year award. 

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42 minutes ago, Sha Bu Le said:

Only experience I've had of dementia was third hand. Friend of a friends mother had it. He was totally unsympathetic. Truth be told he was one of life's most ignorant people I'd ever known. He decided to inflict himself on us for a beer one night. Shortly after joining my mate and myself he announced "I've given her it "Given who what''? I asked. Turns out his elderly mother who has dementia and had been having a rough time so he punched her in the face. How he had the nerve to tell us is beyond me (I did say he was ignorant).

Anyhow I blew up and let him have it (verbally) did want to punch him but kept control. The bar was quite full. Did tell him his mother was ill with dementia and she did not ask for it and does not deserve treating that way. Also told him it was hereditry(sic) (its not I believe) and he would get it  when he was older. 

Between that piece of info and the hostile glares of the pub crowd he did a hasty one. Never seen him since.

To all the posters above I don't know how you all do what you do it's nothing short of amazing. you have all earned your place in heaven (if you believe such things). 

And this topic should get a thread of the year award. 

that is a frightening post.........it makes my blood run cold............reason..................because sometimes it makes you feel like that............then you go into shock actually thinking you could even think like that...then you return back to reality.......................im ashamed to admit it

Dementia is not being taken seriously by drugs companies or govts..........if something is not done and the way it is on the increase it will bring nations to its knees

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On 08/01/2020 at 21:34, ditchman said:

Dementia is not being taken seriously by drugs companies or govts..........if something is not done and the way it is on the increase it will bring nations to its knees

That is the main problem Ditchy.   The government treats it as a social problem.   It is not.   It is an illness just the same as cancer but it is not treated like that at all.   God knows how many of us are acting as nurses and even doctors without training or support.

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49 minutes ago, Grandalf said:

That is the main problem Ditchy.   The government treats it as a social problem.   It is not.   It is an illness just the same as cancer but it is not treated like that at all.   God knows how many of us are acting as nurses and even doctors without training or support.

this thread is an eye opener...........and there are a lot more of us out there choosing not to interact but to just read.........as it is a difficult subject to discuss for some folk......knowing the signs and moods regards dementia..i realise now it is possible that she may have been showing it 7-8 years before diagnosis and she was diagnosed 10 or so years ago.....

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9 hours ago, ditchman said:

this thread is an eye opener...........and there are a lot more of us out there choosing not to interact but to just read.........as it is a difficult subject to discuss for some folk......knowing the signs and moods regards dementia..i realise now it is possible that she may have been showing it 7-8 years before diagnosis and she was diagnosed 10 or so years ago.....

I started the post to recount my personal situation and it has uncovered lots of dedicated members who are caring in silence. It's good to talk , so feel free to mention concerns and it might shed light on positive solutions others have found.

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One thing I learned for the latter stages of the disease was to not correct them as their reality has changed substantially, if they tell you something that you know cannot have happened then it did in their world, even if it didn't in yours. To deny or to correct only leads to distress.

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4 minutes ago, henry d said:

One thing I learned for the latter stages of the disease was to not correct them as their reality has changed substantially, if they tell you something that you know cannot have happened then it did in their world, even if it didn't in yours. To deny or to correct only leads to distress.

that is very true.............it is one of the common threads throuout all the different types/stages of the desease

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Had the first mention of going home again today.

Tonight he said he didn't need any help getting himself ready for bed. Aside from taking his slippers off, taking his trousers off, making sure he took his jumper off before his shirt and then extricating him from the tangle when he tried taking both off at once, then putting his T-shirt on, getting his pyjama bottoms onto his feet, helping him into bed, putting the covers over and connecting his catheter night bag, he did pretty much all of it 😀

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On ‎26‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 10:54, pigeon controller said:

Not to high jack Ditchmans post , it rim indeed me of my experience . My father who was a Police Officer was a private person even to his family. Don't get me wrong he was a great dad and taught me well in the ways of the countryside and shooting. In his early seventies he had an accident in his Land Rover which we think started his dementia. During my schooldays a a local secondary modern I had the stigma of being a coppers son, which you learn to live with when you get the associated ribbing. The dementia opened up a number of chapters to me as I would visit my dad each night after work to check he was OK . He forgot who I was and thought I was his brother and would talk about things they got up to as kids which I could not imagine him doing. He also remembered wartime , when he was with the Americans going into one of the death camps . This explained a peculiar habit he had. Don't get me wrong he had a very strong constitution attending post mortems and horrific road accidents, but he could not pick up a cold dishcloth as it reminded him of the touch of the residents of the camps, he would flick it into the hot water first. 

I had many interesting conversations with him and learnt a lot of family history. 

 

On ‎26‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 10:54, pigeon controller said:

Not to high jack Ditchmans post , it rim indeed me of my experience . My father who was a Police Officer was a private person even to his family. Don't get me wrong he was a great dad and taught me well in the ways of the countryside and shooting. In his early seventies he had an accident in his Land Rover which we think started his dementia. During my schooldays a a local secondary modern I had the stigma of being a coppers son, which you learn to live with when you get the associated ribbing. The dementia opened up a number of chapters to me as I would visit my dad each night after work to check he was OK . He forgot who I was and thought I was his brother and would talk about things they got up to as kids which I could not imagine him doing. He also remembered wartime , when he was with the Americans going into one of the death camps . This explained a peculiar habit he had. Don't get me wrong he had a very strong constitution attending post mortems and horrific road accidents, but he could not pick up a cold dishcloth as it reminded him of the touch of the residents of the camps, he would flick it into the hot water first. 

I had many interesting conversations with him and learnt a lot of family history. 

my grandmother and my mother  plus my 4 aunties all suffered with dementia ,   its a evil condition , I have one auntie left alive in a care home  age 81 , the male side of the family are at present unaffected  by dementia             scary !  

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11 minutes ago, dr lecter said:

 

my grandmother and my mother  plus my 4 aunties all suffered with dementia ,   its a evil condition , I have one auntie left alive in a care home  age 81 , the male side of the family are at present unaffected  by dementia             scary !  

it is scary...........not so much for me anymore as the time is coming soon that after many years i will at last be free..............i find it worrying and scary at the continuing rise of dementia...and all those very useful normal hardworking people at the top of their game in the later stages off their life ...man or woman........that will have their lives curtailed and chucked into the dustbin of history and forgotton ....shunned..........to spend the next 10 years of their lives working as mental nurses and carers for their loved ones...and loosing everything that they have worked for in life.......

that is scary and my heart goes out to those folk.........

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On 06/01/2020 at 11:59, Thunderbird said:

My sympathies to everyone affected by this.

A relative (in his 80s) has just had a stroke and due to the increased family involvement it transpires that his wife is (or probably is) suffering from the early stages of dementia. So typical that you get a situation where the able-minded one gets physically ill, and someone with dementia remains (for a while anyway) physically fit. 

Also, the able-minded partner (whether consciously or not, or a bit of both) compensates for the other, so the seriousness of the condition can remain hidden for quite a while. 

Exactly the same situation with my grand parents on my mum's side.

They ended up in a home just over 3 years ago, where my grand father (stroke victim) passed away 7 weeks later. My Nan (dementia/azheimers)  passed away the week before Christmas at 93.

On 06/01/2020 at 21:31, getthegat said:

My mum is in a home, has been for a few years and she has dementia. She has falls and breaks bones and each time she has anaesthetic the dementia worsens and we lose more of her. I miss conversations with her,  especially since dad passed, we used to have chats about our life in the tiny village in Somerset where we grew up (mum as well as me and my sister) the relatives and people we knew, the houses, fields, orchards, the little chapel and grave yard where our relatives rest....yeah I miss those chats. She has times when she sees and talks to,  imaginary people; she talks about herself in the third tense, it's hard. She has moments when I think she knows me and my sister, then she's gone again.  The home is lovely,  it's clean and bright, she has all she needs and in her condition and at the age of 94, this is the best we can ask. We try and focus on the good times, passed and present,  its a  terrible state for a human being and some are no where near as well cared for as mum. Many many people are missing friends and relatives and yet they are sitting or lying right in front of them.  A sad sad illness.

The home at Hadleigh, just off the round about by any chance?

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