My mother has gone through so many changes lately. She is still able to walk and fix her breakfast, but she is losing her grasp on the world. It is like "Nothing matters and what if it did." She has never really had an empathy with me, but now she doesn't even bother to act like she does. She won't listen to me. If I get her medicine ready, she says she doesn't want to take it just then. If I get dinner ready, she won't go right away to eat. She'll wait 30 minutes or so. She fights me on everything that I do. And believe me, it is not me. She is always angry at me, even though I try so hard to be nice. There must be a name for this type torture.
She is obsessed with doing certain projects that have no meaning except to her. She'll do them for hours and hours, not wanting to stop to eat or go to bed. I tell her dinner is ready. No luck. I tell her it's time for bed. She stays up. She says she's not a child and I can't tell her what to do. I would love to not tell her what to do, but I know she needs her meals and medication and sleep.
If this is stage 6, it is the most difficult stage yet.
As far as your mom eating/sleeping...no, you can't make her. You will lose more sleep trying to get her to sleep. Best thing is to secure the house and get some rest. I finally had to or I was going to drop dead long before she did. Eating? Well, if she's hungry she'll eat... make it, set it out, politely ask her to eat and if she gives you that sullen look, just say you'll leave it on the counter for her.
This stage will really test your patience Jessie.... then stage 7 hits and you'd wish for stage 6 all over again. Just an awful disease.
Her dementia is complicated by having insulin-dependent diabetes, hypertension, and a long-standing mental disorder (terrible anxiety or maybe bipolar). It is a bit like the perfect storm when it comes to caregiving concerns. If she doesn't eat or doesn't take her medications, the diabetes or hypertension could take her out quickly.
This latest round of behavior was ushered in by her taking the SSRI mertazepine (Remeron). It sent her into an obsessional hypomania like one would see in bipolar disorder. I've taken her off the drug now, but the behavior is remaining. The drug may have just been coincident to a new stage of dementia setting in. I'm still hoping she'll go back to a more manageable baseline.
Jeanette, I always admired your strength in working with your mother. I knew I would not have been able to do it. Sometimes my mother is okay, but when she gets the obsessions going, she totally ignores or fights me. I know there is no reasoning or arguing that will work, so I have to wait a few minutes and tell her she needs to eat or take her medicine again. I start to feel like a major nag.
I do dread the time that I'm not able to leave her alone for a while. That may be when we'll have to look into a nursing facility to save my own health.
I took away the shredder today. We'll see how it goes. I love her to have things to do, but there comes a point where it is more like twilight zone.
My sig other will get a delivery box and he will toss it into the recycling bin, as it... me, I take out that box, I take off all the clear tape [because I heard it can jam the recycling machine at the plant], take off the label, and break down the box so that it is flat.... just following the recycling rules :)
I also want to do all the shredding NOW and not wait to finish tomorrow. Yep, I have a bit of OCD but not enough to ruin everyday life... that might come later when I get older :P
Jessie, thank you. It wasn't easy and I'd wished I was dead many times but I knew what would happen to my mother if I wasn't here for her.
Do you think it could be her current meds causing this? Or is she back on her normal ones? Least she's not shadowing you ;)
Her obsessions are also creating work for me. She wanted to clean and reseal her wood swing. She got sandpaper and did part of the swing, but it was too much for her. So I got out yesterday with deck cleaner to finish what she started. The swing looks great now, but I still have to stain and seal. This project wasn't important to me, but I didn't want the scraped swing sitting out in the front yard unprotected from the elements. Looked terrible, too. She is also cleaning out some of my father's old cabinets, which is a job she now wants me to take over, breaking down the cabinets and getting them out of the house. The woman is trying to kill me! :-O
I don't know from stages, but I hate to tell you this, but there is still a long road ahead.
My mother was acting like this as recently as 2 years ago when we moved her, and had started down that road probably 10 years prior to that.
Who knows how long this will last. My mom reacted to everything and everybody with sharpness, anger, frustration, which escalated quickly to loud combative meanness because she could no longer understand.
My mom (the only mom's care I can personally attest to) has very recently come out of this stage because she is sleeping a lot. She can let the staff know that she doesn't want to roll over or stand up, or play balloon ball, but she won't be discussing anything about the future or past. She doesn't ask about anyone anymore.