How do you make your peace with parent's dementia?

This sounds like my mother and myself. I put her in a group home within 3 months of her small TIA then being told she had ALZ. I'm not even over my Daddy's death and then this with my Mother ( over a weekend time). Mind blowing her s & mine. I could not deal with her , from the moment she came home from the hospital. My own Doctor told me I could not do this. It was hard and I do have moments when I feel like maybe I did this too quickly , too soon. I thank G-d my Mother has the money to afford this. My Mother will be 80 in July and this all came about over a weekend in Feb of this year. She had a UTI then a TIA, ( small stroke) every test came back negative , so they based it on her behavior. I demanded a form of Dementia and that's when the neurologist said in the form of Alzheimer's. Good Luck to You what ever you decided. Go to Joan Lunden's (sp) website. You can read about her Journey with her Mother. Plus their are many books about it on amazon.com

Also ALZ.org. I have called in the middle of the night. We are on the west coast . I have talked to the same woman who answers the phones 3 times and she has calmed me down and helped me. Locally they did nothing at all . I mean the local chapter , a bunch of b.s. I could not even find a support group in all of Las Vegas , where we live.

Thank you both for your replies! Missmo, I'm not sure what will happen because my mother doesn't have the money for assisted living, but she does for some in-home help which so far she refuses. Soon the choice will be staying home with in-home help or a nursing home, I surely hope she'll choose the former because for the latter it'll probably take getting her declared legally incompetent to get her out of her house. Good to know about Alz.org too - I'll take a look.

I know I'm early in the process compared to all of you dealing with full on dementia in your parents. Guess I'm just scared of the road ahead.

We all are. Its our Parent. I just buried my Daddy ( a Doctor himself for 31 years ) last Aug 2012. Then my Mom gets this not even six months later. But today was a good day for her even though my Loser brother called the state saying the group home keeps her isolated ( Lie). He's after my Mother money , so he will do everything he can think of , but nothing going to work for him. My Daddy would quietly pay my idiot brothers gambling issues . I will NOT! My Mother money is for her care. This can be a very long illness. Its going to over take cancer in the future. A person is being diagnosed with dementia in the form of Alzheimer's every 68 seconds. Also younger and younger. Try and buy these two books they both helped me a great deal. The 36-Hour Day 5th edition by Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins also learning to Speak Alzheimer's by Robert N. Butler , MD . Try and have a nice weekend , Missy

Remember YOU are the most important person in this. I was forgetting that in the heat of the mess this horrid illness made of our lives. I was not taking care of myself. I became very ill. I'm better now and able to eat again. Was down to 90 pounds from losing my Daddy and then this with my Mom.

Sorry the second book is written by Joanne Koenig Coste , Learning to Speak Alzheimer's with the foreword by Robert N. Butler.

the parent by life experience is twice smarter than we are but their mind is regressing. i brought my mom a strawberry sundae today and she rubbed her hands together like a little kid. find that balance. a kid that you need to treat with the same respect that an elder always rightfully deserved. it isnt easy but doable.

Good advice that I struggle to follow:
Don't correct your mother if you can possibly ignore the mistake. I remember my aunt "correcting" her bedridden, blind 103 y o aunt about what month it was. What difference does it make if she doesn't know the month?

I do my best to correct my husband only 47 times a day instead of 147 times. It's a struggle for me to keep my mouth shut, but I'm getting better.

I've only been here a few weeks. At first, I found it very depressing to think about how awful my future would be, based on the experiences I was reading about. After a while, I started to feel that this is just one more example of life giving us more than we can handle, and then we handle it anyway. Not to claim that I too will not post suicidal rants in the future, but I'm calmer, because what is going to happen is going to happen, and I can't change that. I just have to roll with it when I can, and freak out when I can't.

Don't pay any attention to me, though. My husband can still drive and find his way home and wash the dishes. I have not yet begun to suffer.

Wow , Jinx your hubby is doing well. I will keep him in my thoughts for a long time until you both have to deal with his illness at a different stage. That is me with my Mom. I want her to be right still when she can not any longer on her short term memory. It hurts me deeply I guess to admit this to myself but I'm doing better now that I do not have her living with us. Today we had a great time on the phone ( during what would normally be Sun Downing time for her).. We were talking about her up coming 80th Birthday. I guess I just have to treasure the good moments I have with her. I sometimes forget this. See we all have a little forget fullness ( on a lighter note). OMG my spelling. Now that's for another whole thread of its OWN! lol.