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My dad has started becoming rude with nursing staff. My dad was a real gentle man. Never used foul language and didn't approve of anyone who did. He was easy to get along with and was also never confrontational. When my mom picked an argument, he would walk out and come back later, but never argued or shouted back.


Now he uses language foreign to us coming from him and he is rude and uses abusive language with the staff and we cannot understand it.


Has it happened to anyone on this forum.

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seenypa, this is fairly common. I was watching a video by Teepa Snow. She talked about how the basic part of the brain that has tempers and knows all the bad words is the part that lasts the longest. It can be like the person we used to know disappears as the disease progresses.

The board is very quiet right now. Must be because of Thanksgiving coming this week. Maybe someone that is going through the same thing will be along soon, so I wanted to bump this thread back to the top.
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Thank you , much appreciated. I was told by the NH that my dad uses abusive language and not only is it new to us, but also embarrassing. It is like we hardly know him when he gets like this.
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Even though my FIL doesn't have Alzheimer's or diagnosed dementia, he is exhibiting mental decline and I don't know how to approach things with him. I'm browsing Teepa Snow's website for help. Thanks, JB, for sharing that resource.
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I took care of a lot of head injury and stroke patients.It can be very disturbing to family to see odd and unusual behavior from someone they know. I had a little very old lady (stroke) one time that used the foulest language, words I hadn't heard and I was a nurse.Her elderly sisters would come in to visit, get very upset and actually accused me of TEACHING her to curse,"Well,she never said words like that until she came to this hospital". I was angry, and laughing(on the inside) at the same time at the sad/funny situation. Slowly and gently explained about brain damage and how to interact with their sister. But really, she had to have in 85 yrs.on this planet heard those words somewhere.
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Also it isn't unusual for emotional lability in head injury/stroke/dementia patients which can be very disturbing for families.
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seenypa, I found this article here in Aging Care that might be helpful https://www.agingcare.com/articles/bad-behavior-by-elderly-parents-138673.htm
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I have empathy with what you just said. My dad was beaten at 80yrs old, before he came to live with my sister and he took quite a knock to the head, before he was diagnosed some 2 years later with dementia.
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In sorry you are dealing with this. As my moms dementia declined she became worse in the department of verbal diarrhea. She would loudly say someone was ugly, use profanities like they were nouns, and it was embarrassing. If I ignored her she would repeat it louder. I wanted to disappear. All I could do if change the subject with the excited , "Oh, I forgot to tell you..." and I would think of something quick. I worked like a charm.
But I think many of us have had this happen and we sympathize with you.
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Seenypa, I am so sorry to hear about your dad and his incident at 80. That is horrible. I just watched a story about a young lady who was in an accident and as she recovered she spoke a new language on top of her learned language. If I can find that story I will repost it for you. Her neurologists may have some helpful information.
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Thank you ScrimbleB & Freqflyer. It's helped a lot. Those are very helpful articles. NYDaughterinlaw, I looked up Teepa Snow too. she has very useful advice, thanks.
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It seems like my mother is beginning to curse a lot more. She uses harsh language, and profanity a lot. It's pretty hard to sit through, sometimes.
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This morning my mom called to tell me she doesn't like how they get her up in the mornings - she only been at this place a little over two weeks. Anyhooo - she tells me she told them to get out of her room and leave her alone. I'm sure that this in itself was less than charming but then she adds "they wouldn't leave so the only thing I could think of was to start screaming! So that's what I did." Good morning!
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Rain, how are they supposed to get her up in the morning? With dementia routine is extremely important and facilities want to know what those are to better care for their residents.
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Glad - who knows this week! I think what it probably boiled down to was that she just didn't want to get up. I asked her the same question and couldn't get a straight answer. At first she said they came in without knocking. I said maybe they knocked but because she doesn't sleep with her hearing aids in she didn't hear it. She said "of course I didn't hear them, I was asleep!" (Sigh)
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Rain, the best thing you can say in situations like that " I'll look into that", " I'll take care of that", " that's just terrible, isn't it, I'll have to have a word".

I never argue with my mom anymore to try to get her see the logic of what others are doing; that part of her brain is long, long gone, even before her stroke.

When she was in Independent Living, she used to complain about about how people using walkers stooped, and how some people at her table talked very low. I tried to explain about damage from strokes, but she'd wave her hand and say " they should try harder".
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I am finding that I dread even making a phone call to her, since the conversations so often take an ugly turn. It's hard to disconnect myself from her words.
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Oh Ribbman, I so know how you feel!!! In the past three months my mother has had three melt downs of epic proportions - verse her usual almost daily meltdowns. Mom said things to me that no child - even an adult child, should ever hear from a parent. After the first one nothing she'd said of ever will say will come as a shock. I say to myself all the time "it's the dementia, it's the disease" and I know this in my mind to be true - I know it. But it still hurts. Trying to distance myself mentally, desensitize myself from her cruelty, has become one of the toughest challenges I've ever faced. I wish I had a solution but the best I've been able to do - with help from the folks here, is to know I'm not alone in this dementia hell.
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Seenypa, my sympathies on your father using foul language. Two points I'd like to share. First, if that's all he does, count your lucky stars. Some men get physically or sexually aggressive, sometimes with other patients. So keep an eye out for that. Second, in this part of the brain that keeps unconscious statement such as "my word' or "G*d D*mn It" or similar... train your own brain with a key swear word that in case you lose the ability to speak this might be left. In my case, I have trained myself to say (when I shocked or really pissed off) "Mercy!" because I figure that if I lose my speech the one word I want to get through to my caregivers is: Mercy! (smiles).
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