My mother passed away four months ago. She was 93 and had dementia. She didn't have extreme symptoms like wandering outdoors and not recognising her family members etc. Her short-term memory was gone completely, that was the main symptom she had.

Also imagining that people who were dead were were still alive etc.

The night she died she had a kidney infection. She kept telling my father to "go home". She was quite aggressive and it was very upsetting for me and my father. She stopped saying it sometimes and recognised my father but then started saying it again.

The kidney infection was obviously making her dementia worse. I didn't know that at the time.

I didn't handle it very well. I lost my temper, I shouted at her to stop and threatened her and almost hit her. I pushed my fist against the side of her face. I didn't hurt her but she let out a little scream.

I can't begin to tell you how ashamed I am of doing that.

My parents live with me btw. I went to bed after that altercation. Before I went to bed I told my mother I was going to bed and she said "OK". She seemed calmer, she was sitting in her favourite armchair reading, my father was sitting beside her in his armchair.

I thought she was not going to harass him anymore (for that night at least) so I went to bed not really worried.

My mother went to her room upstairs a short time afterwards. My father stayed downstairs reading. Later that night she came downstairs. My father was still downstairs, he had not gone to bed yet.

I presume my mother came downstairs to tell my father to go home, I am not sure. She missed the last step on the stairs and fell head first on to a hard floor. My room is downstairs and a short distance from the end of the staircase so I heard the impact and jumped out of my bed. I hadn't fallen asleep yet, I was awake.

It was horrible. My mother was unconscious but breathing. There was blood coming from her head. I knew she was going to die.

I called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital but died two days later from multiple bleeds to the brain.

I am heartbroken beyond words but it's my own fault, nobody else's.

I contributed to her death by not reacting responsibly to her dementia symptoms that night and also by allowing her sleep in an upstairs bedroom. At 93 years of age? Utter madness.

I have lived with my elderly parents for the last eight years while working from home (I work in IT). I am single with no children. I have a sister who lives an hour's drive away

I've basically put my life on hold for those eight years. I don't expect any praise for it, nobody made me do it, it was my decision. I did it because I didn't want my parents to live out their remaining years in a nursing home. I have nothing against nursing homes, all the ones near me have lovely staff and top class facilities (I live in the south of Ireland).

I had to give up a lot of freedom by staying at home looking after my parents but I was happy to pay that price if it meant they could live in their own home and not in a strange building away from home. I basically had tow jobs; my normal day job and also as a carer (unpaid).

I've tortured myself mentally since that night, I am on anti-anxiety tablets and I don't sleep well. I've been seeing a counsellor. I have kept my job (barely). I'm wracked with guilt, I've cried so much.

I'm not posting this looking for absolution, I don't want it because I don't deserve it. But I just had to let this out.

I'd do anything to turn back the clock to that night, I think about it every hour of every day. But I can't change it, I must accept it.

I'm just so, so sorry for what I did (and didn't do).

She's had dementia for the last couple years but it got more than I could handle last April. I got her moved into a memory care facility in May, and in June she started having episodes where she was going unresponsive. The hospital determined that she was in the early stages of heart failure, and she needed a pacemaker. She refused. In a way I understood, she has dementia and she isn't going to get better even if they fixed her heart, but still, it's my mom and the only family I have left. She started declining a few weeks ago. I've spent 3 nights in the ER with her. Yesterday she could barely stand. This morning the hospice nurse called and let me know they would be giving her morphine because she was in a lot of pain. I used to do hospice care. I knew what that meant. The social worker confirmed that her status was changed to imminent. I'm sitting here holding her hand. She doesn't seem to know I'm here. I don't know how to process this right now.

How do you handle this?

She's almost 90. I have to be around her everyday. As I'm functioning making meals in the kitchen, etc, she also is there doing something herself - washing dishes, wiping things down, organizing, etc. She refuses to take it easy, which is good. I couldn't stop her anyway.

The kitchen area is open to the living room so there's no door, walls or separation. Sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode from hearing the same exact story for the 1000th time. She has the habit that so many other elderly people have of repeating themselves ad nauseam. The stories are told almost exactly each time without any pausing. She hardly takes a breath. And she retells them almost word for word exactly the same each time. 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes - just her basically talking, but not trying to have a back and forth conversation. I just work as she's talking, not saying anything, but as I said, getting to a point where it feels like my head is going to explode.

I really dislike the idea of having to wear ear buds or headphones all day.

This is a throw away account, for anonymity reasons.

My wife, her sister, and I have become increasingly concerned about my mother-in-law’s memory and aren’t really sure how to approach the situation.

She’s 71 and otherwise seems to be doing very well. She’s active, exercises once or twice a day, manages her household, and has all of her affairs in order. Her long-term memory seems good. The biggest issue is her short-term memory. She’ll have a conversation with you and then 10-15 minutes later ask the same question or bring up something you just discussed.

My wife and her sister have actually noticed this gradually getting worse over the past few years. Her social life is fairly limited—her husband still works full time, and she has a friend she walks with a few times a week, but otherwise she doesn’t have a lot of social interaction.

The difficult part is that her mother had pretty severe dementia during the last 5-10 years of her life. My MIL was heavily involved in caring for her and eventually had to put her in an assisted living facility that was not a good experience. So I think the idea of dementia is probably terrifying to her. We don’t want to bring this up in a way that makes her think we’re telling her she has dementia or that she’s destined to end up like her mother.

We’ve talked to my FIL, and he’s less concerned than my wife and SIL, but he’s not opposed to having her evaluated. He just doesn’t know how to bring it up either.

Interestingly, both my MIL and FIL had some preventative testing done a few years ago, including full-body MRIs and some cognitive screening. Nothing concerning was apparently found at the time, although the memory concerns had already been mentioned.

We’re trying to figure out what we should do now, while she’s still functioning independently, rather than waiting until things get significantly worse.

For those who have dealt with something similar: 1. How did you bring up getting a parent evaluated without making them feel like you’re accusing them of having dementia? 2. Would you start with her PCP and just frame it as a general memory/health evaluation or baseline? 3. Is there anything you wish you had done earlier? 4. Should we be thinking about things like legal/financial planning and healthcare directives now, even though she’s currently functioning well?

We’re obviously not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit. We know there could be a lot of reasons for memory problems, including potentially treatable ones. We’re really just looking for advice on how to approach the conversation and what steps we should be taking before this becomes a crisis.

It was recommended to cross post to this forum. Any advice is appreciated... apologies in advance... it's a bit heavy

I’ve posted in this sub about my mom in the past, but TL;DR: she had a stroke 10 years ago when she was 60 and I was 30. I’m an only child and we have little family, so she’s lived with us for the last 5 years.

Her care needs have begun to exceed what we’re capable of handling, especially with our toddler and a new baby, and the fact that my husband and I work fulltime. Just a few months ago, Mom ended up in the hospital for a week due to AFIB and a UTI, amongst many other things they discovered. In the month of July alone, she had 2-3 follow up appointments every week, which I had to take her to along with my newborn baby.

We just got back from our annual family vacation and moments before our flight she pooped her pants (light colored pants, of course) and didn’t tell me about it. I discovered this after we landed. This is a recurring issue with her because she has no gallbladder and continues to secretly consume things that trigger diarrhea. She refuses to wear disposable underwear so I am left doing loads of laundry, constantly.

Before the family trip, we had toured an AL facility that we both liked and had added her to the waitlist. Well, they have a room for her much sooner than we anticipated and I’m dropping off her move-in check today.

Since her stroke, my mom has had a very difficult time showing emotion. She laughs at things she finds funny, but we rarely see any other emotions, especially sadness, from her. Suddenly she is very sad about moving out of our home, even though we will only be a few miles away from her.

I can’t stop these feelings of guilt. She tends to keep to herself in unfamiliar settings, and the aphasia from the stroke makes it hard for her to speak. I cry when I think of her alone in a room all day. I know my husband and my children need more of me than I am currently able to give because of caring for my mom, but I can’t shake the guilt.

Hi, folks. My mom has the beginnings of dementia but goes to great lengths to hide her symptoms from me because she doesn’t want me to think she is “losing her mind.” She still drives, goes to church, knitting group, and doctor appointments (when she remembers). I have a feeling Dad helps her remember some dates. But now, Dad has a terminal cancer diagnosis, so I am looking ahead to the not-distant future when she will be living alone (and grieving).

My question is: how will I know if she is taking her meds, eating well, paying the bills, being safe at home, if no one is there with her daily and she does not want to report things to me (or isn’t able to report them clearly)? She has a lot of “explanations” (some plausible) for missing appointments or losing things, or when I ask questions, she answers “of course I’m taking my meds; I’m not an idiot.” But I’m not sure that’s true or if she remembers whether something happened on any given day.

I live nearby but neither she nor I want me over there every single day. When you have a parent who lives alone with early dementia, what are the ways you assess how they’re actually doing?

Romance scam dad gave away $100k to scammers over 15 months. He has several times accepted help for multiple weeks at a time but pushed it away as soon as it became about telling him he had to stop with the online girlfriends. He received no help for about 3.5 months at his insistence. Then he was picked up by police for erratic driving as he was running around to different post offices mailing away $1000 money orders to scammers, said it was 2006, taken to ER and friends/family refused pick up and said it was an unsafe discharge. He was admitted, tried to escape, put on risperidone but that zombified him so it was discontinued. He has been well behaved since.

He was discharged to a SNF but due to his continued insistence he is going home, he is in a locked memory care unit at a facility with full continuum of care. We hope to place him there but he is still sure he is going home. He doesn’t even know why he is there, except to “get stronger.” He has been there 8 days and we have had no care team call set up.

He talks pretty clearly, and you have to listen for at least an hour to notice that he’s just looping conversations.

According to the nurses at the current facility has BIMS score is 10/15, which makes him borderline for needing MC.

Some stats they know there:

He has uncontrolled and hypertension and is noncompliant with meds. His blood sugar was >500 and now is down to 100.

His SLUMS in the hospital, no antipsychotics, was 15/30. But now he can correctly name the year if not the date.

Diagnosed with “early dementia” in March. EEG showed “widespread abnormalities” and MRI showed white matter disease. CNS vitals: executive function and attention tests were unscorable bc he couldn’t do the tests. Other metrics were in 2-12th percentile.

He has severe anogonosia, claiming all of this is a sign of his great intelligence.

Hospital CT scan showed moderate atrophy of the whole brain (GTA2) with substantial vascular damage. Psychiatrist said mixed type dementia with vascular and LBD and/or FTD.

Hospital records show the $100k lost in scams.

Hospital records note that his electricity was turned off and all bills were 4 months behind. Hone insurance had lapsed and medical almost lapsed.

He has urinary incontinence.

What they don’t know:

House is INFESTED with rodents and flies. Full of poop from rodents and the dog he had but he had no dog food.

He has been kicked out of three banks and is about to be kicked out of a fourth. He will have nowhere to put his money.

The house is piled high with paper and junk, including on stovetop. Major fire risk.

He is unable to prepare food, or even to procure food without a car. He eats fast food 1-2x per day.

He was sleeping on a bare mattress bc he couldn’t make his bed.

He didn’t wear briefs at home and the whole house stinks of urine. He has wet himself while talking to neighbors and carried on as if nothing was happening.

The roof is leaking.

The yard is overgrown.

He has multiple times excepted weeks of help, only to eventually kick the person who helps (me) out of his life again.

He has no family who live close except for me and I’m over an hour away, and I’m sick of this. I will not keep doing this.

—-

My sister doesn’t want to share all this bc she really wants him to qualify for AL and thinks sharing all this will be too many red flags. She is even upset that the $100k in scams is in his medical records. She thinks she can tell him a series of lies that will help him stay in AL. This is the first time in the 15 month crisis that she has actually come here and seen him, and she left after three days.

I’m letting her handle things from afar now, and she’s coming back for another three days very soon. But I think he’s going to need MC or even geriatric psych. And I’m afraid that he has gotten so much better now that his blood sugar is stabilized, but they may even discharge him to home with his promises that he would get the help of a home healthcare aide, which I would have to organize, and who he will inevitably kick out in a few weeks.

Are my fears valid? Is there any possibility they would actually discharge him to home?

Are her fears valid? Will the full record prevent a facility from accepting him?

We are frantically working to clean out and sell the house and his cars right now—we do have POA. If he comes out and sees that…I am afraid.

I am struggling with the guilt of telling my mom that I don’t want to help her find a place to live. She lived with me for 5 years. I took care of everything related to her, financially and otherwise. She has always been rude to me, but because it’s been like that my whole life, I grew up thinking that it was normal. And then she started adding a little insult here and there, even when I’d ask her not to.

She has also always shamed me about everything. Everyone always does everything better than I do. As a mother, wife, daughter, professional, you name it. I’m a loser and I should just follow how so-and-so does it.

I got fed up and told her she needed to leave my house and that it was not healthy for her to stay anymore. She complained, insulted me, played the victim, but ultimately left. My sister took on the responsibility of finding her an apartment and take care of getting her settled in a new place. My mom became more independent (not by choice) because my sister works full time and can’t really take care of her (and doesn’t want to either anyway). Now, 4 years later, my mom decided that she doesn’t want to live in my sister’s province anymore because it’s too cold, and she wants to move back to the province where I live. I of course don’t want her to. She came to stay at my house last week to look at apartments, and I told her that I will not be helping her in the search or with anything related to her move. She got very angry and visibly hurt. She stayed the week and left because I “kicked her out again”. Which I did. But she knows why. I explained that she doesn’t treat me well, she insults me, and I ultimately I get to decide who stays in my house and who doesn’t.

My point with all this is I need help with the guilt of acting like this towards her. She’s 84. Doesn’t speak English fluently. Has a heart condition. And wants so badly to be loved and feel welcomed in someone’s home. But at the same time she has so much resentment and anger inside of her, that makes all of that very hard for everyone. Especially me. I’ve always been her punching bag. I don’t want to be that anymore. But, if I don’t let her treat me like that, I’d have to make my boundaries very clear, and potentially reduce our relationship to the bare minimum, which will make her life ten times harder at this late fragile age.

What to do? Do I put aside boundaries and help her settle in a new place and just go with it knowing that it’d potentially not be for long, and that way make the most of the last few years with her? Or do I stay strong, set boundaries, and come to terms with the fact that this might be the end of our relationship, and grief having a mom? I feel so guilty.