She can’t see due to degeneration in one eye and a blood vessel issue that will be slow to resolve over time in the other, she sees only shadows. She also isn’t physically able to walk as much anymore and can’t hear well. When the second eye experienced vision loss, her dementia took a hard nosedive, like a switch. She now sees hallucinations or either her brain creates images to try to compensate for vision loss. She gets extremely upset and says creepy things like there are people in the house to kill us all and that animals are in the house and people stole everything. It’s very real to her and she gets so worked up we are concerned for her high blood pressure. She becomes super mean to us as well saying she hopes we get sick too and how nobody wants to help her or how mean we are. We literally do everything for her and the comments are wearing us down. This is now 24/7 and there hasn’t been a respite in days right now. Her dr just says give her melatonin to get her to sleep, but we can’t do that all day and night. Hopefully others have some tips to share.
We took her to a memory clinic for diagnosis. They went over her meds, had a psychiatrist do an evaluation, did a 3D MRI, and we spoke for quite a while to a geriatric doctor. All the regular neurologist had said was that she didn't have Parkinson's Disease while the Physical Therapist swore up and down that she did because of her gait and slight tremors.
Also, do you think an eye mask (similar to what we use on airplanes) might remove the light and shadows that may be contributing to her fears - I know I would be pretty terrified if only given a hint of what I couldn't discern. Seeing nothing may be more comforting - out of sight, out of mind?
Her meanness sounds more out of frustration for her struggles (and you just happen to be first in line!), but I agree it's hard not to take it to heart when sacrificing so much to help. Of course, your mother's definition of help is unlikely to match yours: she wants to not be old, not confused, not frail... yes, that would do nicely, thank you :-)