My grandmother has a behavior with spitting. By spitting I mean she is spitting at myself and other folks on purpose. What can I do to stop this behavior?
My mother had a problem with dry mouth and took medicine to keep her mouth moist. If spitting granny is taking such a medicine, maybe stop it for a while so her mouth is too dry to spit. Then after a while start the med again to see if the spitting behavior has stopped. Also, I wonder if she’s forgetting how to swallow. This could be an early sign.
When Alzheimer's/dementia is at play, you can do nothing to stop behavior such as this because your grandmother does not have a mind that's working properly any longer. Ignore it, or get her placed in a Memory Care Assisted Living facility if she's become too much to handle. They will ignore the behavior.
Search for Teepa Snow videos on YouTube as she's an expert on dementia and how to interact with an Elder to calm them down. Meds from her doc may or may not help with this, trial and error is the reality.
In 2019, there was a thread here on this very topic. Check it out here:
Maybe “on purpose”, maybe cognitive (loss of judgement, inability to understand consequences of actions), maybe something no one is able to figure out when contending with a progressively failing brain.
If she’s more or less mobile you might want to try IMMEDIATELY isolating her when she does this, but you’ll need to assume that nothing you try to stop this may work.
Have you tried “tracking” her spitting outbursts? Do you have a sense of what if anything provokes them?
If this does happen you will of course attempt to eliminate the triggers that cause her to react. You might want to ask her physician to suggest a trial of a mild mood stabilizing medication.
Hopefully, she’ll move through this disturbing phase quickly.
Search for Teepa Snow videos on YouTube as she's an expert on dementia and how to interact with an Elder to calm them down. Meds from her doc may or may not help with this, trial and error is the reality.
In 2019, there was a thread here on this very topic. Check it out here:
https://www.agingcare.com/questions/mom-has-started-spitting-is-this-another-normal-part-of-her-alzheimers-448452.htm
Good luck to you
If she’s more or less mobile you might want to try IMMEDIATELY isolating her when she does this, but you’ll need to assume that nothing you try to stop this may work.
Have you tried “tracking” her spitting outbursts? Do you have a sense of what if anything provokes them?
If this does happen you will of course attempt to eliminate the triggers that cause her to react. You might want to ask her physician to suggest a trial of a mild mood stabilizing medication.
Hopefully, she’ll move through this disturbing phase quickly.