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My great grandmother has alzheimers and I'm wondering if her obsession of me losing weight is because of it. Every time I see her over and over again that same day she will recommend I lose weight and that she will pay for me to do it. This is for a documentary for my media class I would love help.

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I don't know if it's attributable to Alzheimer's - did she just start this obsession after her diagnosis? Is your weight a recent issue? My parents were both very active, healthy and trim. Both were always after me about my weight since I put on a few (haha) pounds post baby - still trying to take off the baby weight - um, my son is 23. Anyhow - I think you'll have to look at your situation specific to you and your ggma and yours/hers attitude regarding your weight pre/post diagnois.
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Why do dementia patients obsess about anything? I suspect there might be a reason hidden in the past in some cases, but not one we can necessarily discover.

When it became difficult for my husband to reach up and turn off his bedside lamp I found an extension cord it could be plugged into and that he could easily turn off. He took it apart several times -- something that required getting on his hands and knees to do. We had this conversation:

"I thought you liked the new way to turn off the lamp."
"Oh I love it! It is the slickest thing I've seen lately. I can always reach it easily."
"Then why are you taking it off the lamp?"
"Didn't you tell me you bought it?"
"Yes. I did buy it -- one for your side of the bed and one for mine."
"Well if we paid for it and I love it, I certainly don't want to leave it here when we leave this hotel."

So ... there was a reason my husband was obsessed with unplugging the cord. It was related to his delusion that we were staying in a hotel (when in fact we were home).

So maybe great-grandmother has a perfectly logical reason to be so obsessed about your weight, in her version of reality. Maybe someday that will be clear to you, but probably not.

If your grandmother has dementia, there is nothing, really, that isn't impacted by the damaged condition of her brain. Is her obsession about your weight (or whatever obsession she may have next week) related to the dementia? Absolutely!
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She doesn't remember that she already mentioned it. If you have gained weight since the time that she remembers you best, it probably feels like she just noticed it. I was heavy in my late teens and lost the weight in my 20s. For years every time my Grandmother would see me she would gush about how I had lost weight, even though I was the exact same size as I had been for years. She always remembered me as I had been at 18. Also, with dementia people sometimes lose the filter that keeps them from making inappropriate comments. She may not be obsessed so much as noticing and commenting and then forgetting that she already did that.
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When Alzheimer's develops a person will often lose their social filters. Things that have bothered them that they would not talk about for whatever reason. They would not complain, not wanting to hurt feelings. They just would not say things that they thought would be hurtful to anybody. Alzheimer's damages the brain that is responsible for them being cordial and kind. If grandma has always worried about your weight then her thoughts about you losing weight will be expressed more often. Maybe it is something she has always worried about but did not want to hurt your feelings. She loves you after all.

My mom was terrible. Thank goodness I did not have a weight problem, but she did not like my hair one little bit, and never did. She always wanted to take me to get my hair cut and styled. The last time she ever made that decision for me I was in about 7th grade. She thought getting a perm for my long and stringy, straight hair would be the solution to her dislike. It was awful, I must have cried for two days, finally went to have my hair cut short and thinned significantly. That still did not solve the problem.

I cared for mom 24/7 for four years. At the beginning whenever she and her hubby and I would go anywhere, ahe sould make rude comments about just about everybody she saw that needed to lose weight. That wasn't just mom making comments but her hubby, without dementia, as well. I was able to stop this for the most part by redirecting mom. I could tell when the rude comments were coming so would start to talk about something else. It worked most of the time.

And remember your grandma loves you and may be really concerned. She is not doing it to be mean Alzheimer's will not permit her brain to reason.
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my mom gets obsessive too. Her current obsession is paper towels vs. toilet paper-what she can flush and what she cannot flush. It doesn't do any good for me to show her which is for the toilet and which is a paper towel. We keep going on an endless loop until I'd like to tear my hair out.
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Leilanii, as you can see people with dementia/alzheimers do have certain things they will obsess about most of the time. My hubby looks for his deceased mother every day, puts paper towels under everything, folds up toilet paper into tiny pieces and stacks them all over the place and of course asks the exact same questions constantly. Those are just a few of the things that are repeat focuses.
I can say the best way to help your sanity is to realize that it can't be helped and is caused by a disease. These people do not act this way because they want to irritate anyone, they just can't help themselves.
However, even knowing that I spend so many hours a day so irritated and upset with the constant redirection and picking up. This is a hard battle and not one that is easy to fight.
Because her obsession is related to you personally makes it even harder to take. If you can try to not make it personal, maybe that will help you. If it wasn't your weight being the focus, it would be something else. Good luck to you!
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There is NO WAY her talking about you losing weight is the cause of her dementia. Her brain is malfunctioning and that's what causes her memory loss, not your weight loss.
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Marsalis, get the paper towels out of the bathroom and tp out of every other room. That way at least the tp is the only paper in the bathroom.
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The id overrides the ego so while she is attending to her basic needs she will do so in a way that is not necessarily socially acceptable - add in memory loss and repetition and various other dementia related issues, she is in a funny sort of way telling you she loves you and worries that your weight may be affecting your health. Unless she is like my Mum who has always been vile about my size and it has nothing to do with loving me - I know this - in Mums case it is just a seemingly constant focus she seems unable to detach from.

With dementia comes several rather pleasing/unpleasant effects - all previous traits are exaggerated and so nice people tend to become nicer nasty people .....well you get the picture
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