I'm still not sure if my mom has dementia but she started showing serious signs last week. I live with my mom and she was a tough lady before last week. I took her to the doctor and they believe she might have had a stroke and she's just feeling the after effects (brain failure). They were more concerned for her blood sugar levels than her sanity but I learned that blood sugar can effect the brain.
Anyway, as her behavior started to decline to forgetfulness and memory loss I've begin taking preventative measures. I've taken away her old cell phones and tablets to prevent random downloads. I turn off the gas main when leaving the house after the last three fire alarm scares. I've also simplified her phone though not entirely (I'm working out the kinks).
Is there anything else I may be forgetting?
"I have a lot of help with this." YAY!
"...he can sometimes sneak by us if we're distracted." Toddlers are good at this too!
"We have a simple, pull string type childrens music toy attached to the top of the door that leads outside and if the door is open the string is pulled and we can all hear the music so we know he's leaving..." AWESOME!! Good old Yankee ingenuity!!!
"Vehicle keys are kept under lock and keys." Where do you keep the keys for the keys? I should think the music toy would be first line of defense there, but he could snag keys and hide them too if left out!
"Each of my adult kids has a locking bedroom door which they keep locked ..." Privacy AND protects their possessions!
"...we store all vitamins, meds and dangerous items behind locked doors." YAY!
"We have allotted him a kitchen cabinet that we store all his snack items and his favorite plates cups flatware etc. We put his photo on it and he really likes being able to go there and get whatever he likes, whenever he likes." THAT is another awesome idea!!!
"We keep a measured amount of liquid soap, shampoo etc in the bathroom because he still bathes himself and this keeps him from overdoing it with the suds and flooding the whole bathroom." Ummm, even with a way to restrict the amount of water used, he could still flood the bathroom...
"The bathroom door lock is an easy pop lock so if he gets locked in we can just pop it open with an ice pick." All bath doors (really any interior door) should be this type. A child can lock his/herself into a room easily! I am replacing the bath ones in this house as they are some butt-fangled type that lock depending on how you handle the handle (I still haven't figured that one out, lock myself IN and I HATE the damn thing!)
"The bathroom is all tile with non slip pads. The pads can just be pulled up and washed and the tile cleaned easily when he has those moments where he's "playfully" spraying pee all over the bathroom like a toddler." OMG, I was glad I was not eating or drinking when I read this one!!!!!
"If I ever remodel I will have a floor drain put in." Probably a good idea, but might not look very nice...
"He became obsessed with putting things down the in sink garbage disposal so we finally just had it taken out. I was concerned that he would seriously hurt himself if we left it in." Haven't had one of those, so never considered that, but yeah, either disable it or get rid of it - better to live without it than without a hand!!!!
"We bought him shoes that have velcro, zippered clothing instead of buttons etc." Good idea, even for anyone who has manual dexterity issues.
"We "story" him when guests are coming. Showing him photos and reminding hims who people are and something about them. Sometimes he can retain enough so that he's not so frightened when we have visitors." Sometimes... I do show mom pix of my grandson - she likes seeing them, but even having pix in her room she still doesn't recall who's kid it is. Asks every time, but that's okay. Just being there and showing pictures can likely keep some memories alive. Doing Xmas cards with her, I had some for my younger brother's daughters. She had no clue who they were, even though they are almost 20 years younger than my kids and lived nearby so she DOTED on them big time!! I had their mother send me pix, so I could try to keep them in mom's memory (don't think brother visits much and likely never talks about them or shows pix.)
"Basically toddler proofing is the idea with the added access the toddler were have if taller." - Yup!! Kinda goes with taking mom to appointments. I get there, she starts with the 'I don't want to go', 'Why do I have to go?', 'I don't need it, I am fine.' and 'Do I have to go?' That's when I pull mom-rank and say put your coat on and let's go.
Gads! Imagine if toddlers were born adult sized!!!! 8^O
As many times as we have told Mother not to give the dog certain foods, she does. Sometimes this is done on the sly and sometimes she just forgets.
I have told her several times not to give him grapes or raisins, "because they are toxic to dogs and he can become fatally ill."
Of course her answer is, "I know."
I finally just stopped bringing home grapes or oatmeal raisin cookies because she always wants to share with the dog.
I mean, it's one thing for her to kill my orchids by over watering. I don't need her to accidentally kill my dog with a raisin.