It's been pointed out to me that when you tell someone with dimentia some sad thing they can end up learning it all over again for the first time. The pain is just as sharp as if they'd never known. They can go through full mourning each time. Its just cruel to do that to someone. Lying in that circumstance isn't just avoiding something unpleasant, its a kindness.

At my grandmother's nursing home, they had one bloke there, suffering from dementia, who was absolutely certain he was not supposed to be there. If they took their eye off him, he'd be straight out the front door and halfway down the street. They finally solved the problem by hanging a sign on the inside of the front door saying "WOMEN'S TOILET".

It's been pointed out to me that when you tell someone with dimentia some sad thing they can end up learning it all over again for the first time.

Yeah. It's going to be hard to deal with that when my mother's cousins and few good friends start dying. Happily, her brother is in much healthier shape and will most probably outlive her.

They finally solved the problem by hanging a sign on the inside of the front door saying "WOMEN'S TOILET".

HAH. That's awesome.

Dementia terrifies me. I wonder how aware they are of their impairment.

Hubby saw an interesting show regarding Alzheimer's patients who started remembering things if they were given their knick-knacks to hold, they'd start telling the stories associated with the object that they hadn't been able to remember before. Having the object in their hands helped them access their memories in different ways. It helped rebuild mental pathways. One family started a hunt to find duplicates for items that matched things they'd gotten rid of in the name of decluttering.

I told Hubby that our memories were probably safe, with all the stuff we have around.

I keep getting email notifications from Facebook telling me that someone who's patently not thought about me in years has posted some poker thing to my wall When you're playing these games on FB, the apps can't spam your friendlist iwithout your permission, right? Does that mean it's more probably a function of not having noticed, not caring, or there's some reward for numbers?

I mean, basically, what's in it for him why he's done this three times in two weeks (I've blocked the apps and stopped FB from sending me alerts for that sort of activity).

Dementia terrifies me. I wonder how aware they are of their impairment.

At some level, very; that's why they're so upset and agitated, because they know they're missing something. But consciously, not so much. It depends on the person, the time of day, the context. It's very fluid, both how their memory is, and how conscious they are of its gaps.

Which of course makes it very hard to manage them, because you never know what they're thinking.

Also, the memory loss is the least of dementia -- it's the loss of rationality, executive function, all that stuff. Knowing what you had for breakfast doesn't matter, but thinking people are out to get you is terrifying.

With the promise of Taco Bell, which he has never had, mac has finished another book. That is 2 books in a week and a half. We are in new territory.

bt,

That's awesome