I have 83 year old mother recently took the memory test. She thought the testing was supposed to be a class even tho the Dr. I’m sure indicated it was to check for memory. From the testing form, I could tell her score was very low, but we have not heard. She has lived with me the past year. She gets very nasty towards me. I try to maintain a calm voice, explain or suggest, not direct her. Example, her clothes are on backwards and inside out most days. I might suggest before we leave the house she turn it the correct way. She will suck her teeth in frustration. She used to coordinate her clothes, now she just wears the same thing every day. Anyone notice this with eyesight issues? She seems to not be able to distinguish items. To help her see things, I put yellow tape on the coffee maker, her bathroom cabinet, faucet handles, outside screen door (to close it), etc. I removed area rugs (she shuffles her feet) and yellow taped down other flooring. I try to keep all the liquids she drinks on same shelf in refrigerator, and always leave snacks in her room. I am new dealing with this.
She puts on clothing backwards or inside out because she can no longer process what clothing should look like. She's quite advanced now with her dementia. Yellow tape won't help either. Her world must be shrunken down now to the point where she has no choices, and everything is done FOR her. That's the environment Memory Care Assisted Living provides. And even then they struggle.
My mother would use the phone to change the channel on the TV and have a fit when it didn't work. She'd apply Febreze to a stain and not understand why it didn't work.
When I thought moms hearing was getting even worse, and found myself screaming and still hearing her say, "What?" I realized it wasn't a hearing problem she suffered from but a comprehension problem instead. She could no longer understand language.
In Memory Care, meals would be shown to residents on red plates to stimulate appetite. They'd point to which meal they preferred. Easy peasy.
Don't ask open ended questions but Yes/No one's instead.
Help mom dress and shower.
If she suffers from anosognosia, which is the inability to recognize her deficits, then it seems like she's in denial. My mother thought she was just fine, and everyone else was "crazy". It's tough to deal with, God knows.
Pick up a copy of the book Understanding the Dementia Experience by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller on Amazon. Also The 36 Hour Day is another good one, more of a reference book to have on hand.
Best of luck to you.
The reason you didn't hear back on the testing is probably because of HIPAA rules: did they have her fill out a Medical Representative form at the appointment? She would need to put your name on that in order for her primary doctor to legally discuss any of her private medical information with you.
At that appointment I hope they also did an actual exam to test to make sure she doesn't have a UTI or any other medical condition that can cause cognitive, neurological or behavioral symptoms.
Are you your Mom's PoA? If not, this may create a problem in the near future regarding managing her finances and healthcare.
The yellow tape: Your mind can categorize and tells you that things with yellow tape need focus and understanding that these are items to see and use. Mom may not be able to figure all that out or be able to differentiate between them as to what the items actually do. They all serve a different purpose. You know that but she won't. Dementia patients lose the capacity to know what a thing does. My DH wore a pink afghan as a cape and couldn't understand that it wasn't clothing. He fastened it with a chip clip. He decorated an inside window frame with a banana slice with a dead mosquito on top. (Very creative!) We had plenty of snacks around that he enjoyed, but he tried to eat his arthritis gel. Such a patient must be watched IN PERSON (not on remote camera) every second, 24/7.
Get ready! Both my parents had and now DH has dementia. Suggestion: Investigate outs. It isn't easy to keep them at home, and at times, they've out-thought me.
DH is now in a wonderful memory care facility. He's happy there.
I especially love the pink afghan cape with a chip clip. That's pretty clever.
I love that my husband, still at home, and with diminished capacity, will still find ways to make me laugh.
Place a dark rug near a door and they think it is a hole.
Place a large picture of a bookcase over an entire door and the door magically dissapears.
These are examples of tricks you can see in MC
is already seeing better and noticing a life improvement.
Red is a good color for alzheimer's patients.
We got red plates, small red cups, red handled silverware and red placemats.
We put red non skid lobsters on the back of the toilet seat (when lifted up) so she could find the toilet. We used some red non skid rugs in the bathrooms.
I took to wearing red sweaters.
We put red tape around the grab bars in the bathroom.
Red is a good color for alzheimer's patients to see/find things.
Facial recognition: does she mix people up? I knew we were in (new) trouble when my mother thought a plumber was her eldest son for a full 15 minutes, because they had the same build and voice. And yes, some of that was memory loss mixed in. She eventually was nearly totally sightless when she passed, however, so I saw the full decline.
Other early clues: I noticed my mom filling water cups up too high and spilling as she drank. She kept having “trouble” with the remote until I realized she couldn’t see the ON button. I painted it red with nail polish and that worked for awhile. She started counting aloud the number of stairs when going up and down in the house, all the time, and announcing it every time, as if memorizing the number. I also observed, as you have, the clothes not matching and her not always noticing when food spilled on them. Another early sign: As a food lover and cook, she started letting me choose meals and prepare them, acting as if she didn’t care, but in fact she couldn’t always read the labels or find the utensils. She also couldn’t tell by sight when an egg, for example, was cooked, so her lack of sight soon led to the stove being off limits, then the hiring of home help, then my moving in…etc.
On the plus side, my mother always commented on my appearance, all my life. But when her eyesight began to fail, she stopped noticing and telling me things like “You should try a brighter color near your face!” That sounds like a joke, but really, I should have seen it as the sign that it was.
Don’t be alarmed if she starts “seeing” dark shadows in the house or weird flashes of light. Equally, enjoy, the experience if she notices pretty sights like sunsets that are brilliant and special. Make a big deal out of that. Imagine it: your sight is dimming as your body prepares to leave this earth, and there is a blazing red orange sky. Whoa.
I have warm memories of our mutual admiration of what my mom could still see as she aged and changed. I hope you do, too. Good luck.
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