Communicating and dementia
Discussion
My Grandma died last month following a fortunately brief period of accelerated dementia. She was 92 and her funeral was in the same church on the same day of the year as her wedding had been, back in the 40s. That's symmetry for you.
For a few years she had been increasingly forgetful, meaning you had to repeat conversations at increasingly short intervals. A family member was trusted to be her carer, as she rattled about in a large town house for nearly 30 years following Grandad's death in the late 80s.
Things came to a head when Mum and my Sister visited for last Christmas, to find Grandma had gone downhill at a rate of knots. She was malnurished, dirty and messing herself. The 'trusted' family member, my cousin, had been failing to feed or wash her, and helping himself to all but £40 a week of her pension money. The carpets up the stairs were literally dusty with skin falling off her dried legs and scalp and the bath taps were almost stuck shut.
At this point, Grandma recognised us as close family, but anyone further outside the immediate circle was hazy and she'd forget they'd even been in the room after a few minutes. The GP, Social Services and the local NHS were all engaged to make assessments. Ultimately my Grandma was faced with one side of her family trying to persuade her (and the authorities) that everything was OK and that she wasn't ill (let's just say there were designs on a valuable property). My Mum and Sister took on the care of a vulnerable and neglected old woman.
In the space of 6 months, she became psychotic and on very heavy dosages of medication that kept her subdued. My sister, a single mother with a 4 year old, took Grandma to live with her, because the fees for a home would be around £900 per week, and Grandma, having had her pension systematically robbed by her own grandson, was too cash poor and asset rich to afford it or get help. Every week Grandma would suffer mini strokes, be a vegetable for a few days, then regain some lucidity, before the process started again. The doctors suspected a combination of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia attacking at the same time. Some days she would barely wake, and others she'd be trashing the house, naked, like a mad and wrinkly toddler.
She regularly begged my sister to end it, as she had moments of lucidity and fought the disease. I wouldn't have blamed my sister had she done so. A woman who worked at board level with RAFA well into her 70s had been reduced to a wreck.
Eventually her body began to shut down; she didn't eat for a couple of weeks and didn't take in any liquid for a week or so before she finally let go and passed away, about 6 months after her sudden turn downhill. Mercifully, it was far shorter than some endure.
I wouldn't wish the illness on anybody, although to me the real victims are not the sufferers of the disease, but the families who have to witness those they once looked up to as being little more than shells with an empty brain, slowly meandering towards a sad and prolonged end. What really got me, was that in the end, Grandma couldn't even remember her house, a place she'd lived in since the 1950s, where I grew up in the early time of my life, where she brought up her own two kids, where her husband shared more than 30 years with her and hosted hundreds of family gatherings. By the time she died, with those memories gone, it was almost as if she might not have had any life, as far as she was concerned, as she couldn't remember any of it. To be on her deathbed, without being able to die with those happy memories in her mind, breaks my heart.
For a few years she had been increasingly forgetful, meaning you had to repeat conversations at increasingly short intervals. A family member was trusted to be her carer, as she rattled about in a large town house for nearly 30 years following Grandad's death in the late 80s.
Things came to a head when Mum and my Sister visited for last Christmas, to find Grandma had gone downhill at a rate of knots. She was malnurished, dirty and messing herself. The 'trusted' family member, my cousin, had been failing to feed or wash her, and helping himself to all but £40 a week of her pension money. The carpets up the stairs were literally dusty with skin falling off her dried legs and scalp and the bath taps were almost stuck shut.
At this point, Grandma recognised us as close family, but anyone further outside the immediate circle was hazy and she'd forget they'd even been in the room after a few minutes. The GP, Social Services and the local NHS were all engaged to make assessments. Ultimately my Grandma was faced with one side of her family trying to persuade her (and the authorities) that everything was OK and that she wasn't ill (let's just say there were designs on a valuable property). My Mum and Sister took on the care of a vulnerable and neglected old woman.
In the space of 6 months, she became psychotic and on very heavy dosages of medication that kept her subdued. My sister, a single mother with a 4 year old, took Grandma to live with her, because the fees for a home would be around £900 per week, and Grandma, having had her pension systematically robbed by her own grandson, was too cash poor and asset rich to afford it or get help. Every week Grandma would suffer mini strokes, be a vegetable for a few days, then regain some lucidity, before the process started again. The doctors suspected a combination of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia attacking at the same time. Some days she would barely wake, and others she'd be trashing the house, naked, like a mad and wrinkly toddler.
She regularly begged my sister to end it, as she had moments of lucidity and fought the disease. I wouldn't have blamed my sister had she done so. A woman who worked at board level with RAFA well into her 70s had been reduced to a wreck.
Eventually her body began to shut down; she didn't eat for a couple of weeks and didn't take in any liquid for a week or so before she finally let go and passed away, about 6 months after her sudden turn downhill. Mercifully, it was far shorter than some endure.
I wouldn't wish the illness on anybody, although to me the real victims are not the sufferers of the disease, but the families who have to witness those they once looked up to as being little more than shells with an empty brain, slowly meandering towards a sad and prolonged end. What really got me, was that in the end, Grandma couldn't even remember her house, a place she'd lived in since the 1950s, where I grew up in the early time of my life, where she brought up her own two kids, where her husband shared more than 30 years with her and hosted hundreds of family gatherings. By the time she died, with those memories gone, it was almost as if she might not have had any life, as far as she was concerned, as she couldn't remember any of it. To be on her deathbed, without being able to die with those happy memories in her mind, breaks my heart.
ali_kat said:
Thats a horrific thing he did!
I'm sorry for your loss
The awful sI'm sorry for your loss
t is in his 30s and not had a job of any sort since 2006. He spent the last 6 months of last year trying to cover up how bad Grandma had got to keep on the gravy train. He'd made a shrewd move from JSA just as the rules on long-term job avoiders came in and switched to being a full time 'carer' to avoid the need to prove he is lazy.Every week he would collect just over £200 from he pension, take £40 out to buy her some food for the week (typically sausage rolls and that's just about it), give her what's left from the £40 and pocket £160 for himself. On top of the 'carer's allowance'.
Once we found out what had been going on, he f
ked off and only rang my Grandma a couple of times to beg for cash. She was distraught because she'd bonded with him and saw him as the real comfort in her life, and didn't really understand why he'd suddenly disappeared. Despite what he'd done, we tried to encourage him to see her as we knew it would bring her comfort, but he didn't bother. In the 6 months she lived with my sister he didn't visit once.He and his rabble of siblings turned up to the funeral (him in a f
king checked shirt and jeans, I might add), and didn't even bother coming to the crematorium to say goodbye to his Grandma/ bank. My poor Grandma went through the indignity of being seriously ill and not being able to afford care when she needed it, having become dizzy through malnourishment and dirty to the point of being a health hazard, and the brazen st, her own grandkids, didn't even have the grace to say goodbye to the old girl.I won't forget my sister finding one of his Facebook posts from late last year, declaring how this year he was going to end up living in a 'big house', his mother having tramped my fading grandma to the solicitors last year to obtain copies of her will and deeds to the house.
Some people are just plain evil.
Not that any of this bothers me, obviously!
After a week of my Dad perking up & being more communicative, I'm sorry to say that he had a massive heart attack last Monday and was blessed in that his death was instantaneous 
Because it was a sudden death, we have to go through an autopsy & the Coronor before he is released to the Funeral Directors
Because it was a sudden death, we have to go through an autopsy & the Coronor before he is released to the Funeral Directors
ali_kat said:
After a week of my Dad perking up & being more communicative, I'm sorry to say that he had a massive heart attack last Monday and was blessed in that his death was instantaneous
Because it was a sudden death, we have to go through an autopsy & the Coronor before he is released to the Funeral Directors
Sorry to hear this Ali.Because it was a sudden death, we have to go through an autopsy & the Coronor before he is released to the Funeral Directors
I have the awful feeling that you are going through a kaleidoscope of emotions and feeling right now.
I was fine last week the shock & adrenaline you know? But Sunday night it hit me and I'm a blubbering mess this week, including panic attacks when I go to sleep/leave the houseGassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff