I am familiar with " Dependency Resentment", but this being said and exposed, I may suggest that an elder person sees the stupidity and laxicity around them and therefore may become somewhat snide in their comments. Can you imagine being in your eighties and having to tell a caregiver to wash his/her hands after handling bathroom equipment? Or perhaps having to remind a caregiver that dehydration may be causing forgetfullness? With age may come wisdom.
I'd like to pipe in on another point. Some of us have found that when our parents get mad at us, that regardless of dementia, we can insist on being treated with respect. Some caregivers have suffered from parental abuse and anger their entire lives, and now when the parent is totally dependent, the anger escalates, sometimes to physical violence.
If you read these posts long enough, you will find caregivers who thought they had to put up with this abuse because of the dementia and the perpetrator being a parent. When I helped try to corral two bipolar elderly friends...and that was some project!.. I learned from the sheriff the term "51/50." It's the code for the person being a danger to oneself or others. If they are still acting up when the police come to check, then can be taken in for observation for 2-3 days, perhaps stabilized with mood altering drugs. Perhaps the process of placing them in an appropriate facility will be started, or the county may sue for conservatorship of both person/estate. So if you find you are in a position where shoes are flying by your head and dinner plates frisbeed at your ribcage, you don't have to stand for it.
Oh, if the anger and odd behavior is a more recent behavior, the patient may have frontal temporal dementia, which affects the normal "moral" compass of the person. They'll become rage-aholics, start shoplifting, go dumpster diving. There are some videos on YouTube about it.
There is a good book titled "Elder Rage." And the author has a helpful website.
The brain changes in a declining manner as we all age. Your mom is trapped in a brain that does not do what she needs or wants it to do. Trust me she is mourning many losses in her life such as independence, physical abilities, failing memory, the loss of her things or home,and maybe the loss of a husband. Losses that turn into anger need counseling or maybe even a low dose antidepressant. The research supports these meds in patients with various forms of dementia. I personally have seen a marked improvement with my mom who has Alzheimer's disease.
There are several recent discussions on just this issue, with lots of responses. My one reason explanation is "dependency resentment," a term I learned from the Love and Logic parenting organization. Your parents are becoming imprisoned by their failing bodies, by children suddenly showing up and handling their affairs, by old patterns of behavior they've never resolved. They face imprisonment in a nursing home possibly, risk having their driver's license revoked. Their world is closing in on them. I'd be pissed too. It takes a big personality to realize one needs a lot of help, and then say "thank God you came to help me" when help is offered. There's going to be a lot of fear, anger and resentment thrown around before things are accepted as being necessary. Strange how we all know we might get old, and nobody prepares oneself to handle the cascade of losses. "Toy Story 3" deals with pertinent issues. Bring kleenex.
If you read these posts long enough, you will find caregivers who thought they had to put up with this abuse because of the dementia and the perpetrator being a parent. When I helped try to corral two bipolar elderly friends...and that was some project!.. I learned from the sheriff the term "51/50." It's the code for the person being a danger to oneself or others. If they are still acting up when the police come to check, then can be taken in for observation for 2-3 days, perhaps stabilized with mood altering drugs. Perhaps the process of placing them in an appropriate facility will be started, or the county may sue for conservatorship of both person/estate. So if you find you are in a position where shoes are flying by your head and dinner plates frisbeed at your ribcage, you don't have to stand for it.
Oh, if the anger and odd behavior is a more recent behavior, the patient may have frontal temporal dementia, which affects the normal "moral" compass of the person. They'll become rage-aholics, start shoplifting, go dumpster diving. There are some videos on YouTube about it.
There is a good book titled "Elder Rage." And the author has a helpful website.