Hello,
I'm new to this forum but having read a few posts I can completely relate to many of your struggles.
I'm a 36 year old woman and I live with my parents. My dad has vascular dementia and was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year. He's been retired for 15 years now, and in that time walking has become his main hobby (he can go 10-15 miles, at speed, and think nothing of it).
However, you can imagine (or have most likely experienced) the horrors that causes when you add walking to extreme forgetfulness. The first we realised it was a problem was last year, when he didn't come home for 12 hours so we called the police. He was found, when a member of the public reported seeing someone walking on the duel carriageway. My dad could not remember where he'd been, only that it was "an adventure" (I'll say).
Since then, we've taken the following action:
1. We have a GPS tracker on a keyring which he carries everywhere. It texts me, my mum and sister if my dad leaves a designated area, and shows a map of his location on Google Maps. We also have another GPS tracking device which is inside a torch, which I can also text to get his location. These have been total lifesavers when he's gone off, or slipped off when out with my mum.
2. Not to my liking, but seeing no other choice, my mum goes with him everywhere. When you're in your 60s with your own health condition (she has an autoimmune condition) and you are literally having to go walking in the winter, sometimes as early as 4am, and usually 3 times a day, it is little wonder that when I checked my mum's blood pressure it was 197/97. When she has a day away from my dad her blood pressure goes back to normal.
3. I take my dad out. We climbed all 528 steps to the top of St Paul's cathedral last week, and danced around some of the exhibits in the Museum of London, and we've gone cycling around the Olympic Park in Stratford. We've been to the cinema, the casino... I love hanging out with my dad and I'm also aware that in a way his illness is bringing us together. He is a bit slow sometimes, because for some reason he now only wants to walk in between the lines of the pavement, but he looks so hilarious walking like that (and I tell him, and we both crack up laughing). It can be tiring though (he somehow managed to leave his phone in the museum last week, which I had to go back for the next day).
I work a stressful job as a dentist, and I'm only 3 months into a 3 year distance learning masters degree. After getting my dad' s diagnosis last summer I was in two minds about whether to take it on. I've had tinnitus every night since about October, and I know it's the stress. I almost wouldn't mind if the ringing in my ears was a bit more tuneful, like if my ears could play the UK Top 40, or better still some Kenny G then I might get some sleep.
I am worried about my mum, because she doesn't have a life of her own any more. As soon as my dad wants to go out, she drops everything. She's on immunosuppressive medication so being out in the cold all hours, even when she's tired is just no good for her. It's just so overwhelmingly *intense*. I just can't see how this doesn't end up with her in hospital. When he wants to leave, getting him to stay is hard/next to impossible. He's really fit with no health problems other than Alzheimers so it also doesn't seem fair not to let him keep active.
I don't know how anyone else has managed in this kind of situation? I feel like my whole life is about work, or my parents, and it's driving me mad. So I need some solutions, and my mum needs some respite.
Reading some of your posts, about compassionate communication was really helpful. Usually the only way we can stop my dad from going out is to tell him it's going to rain. I have felt awful about lying to him, but I actually think it's time to step the lies up to something so gargantuan that he never wants to leave the house!... "No dad, you better stay in bed! It's 4am and the *martians* are coming!"....
"Walking, now? Oh no dad, did you not hear, the Plague is making a comeback worse than 1665!"
"You want to wear those shoes? I'm sure I saw mouse in your shoe. Better wait until the exterminator gets here."
If it's for his own good....
I'm new to this forum but having read a few posts I can completely relate to many of your struggles.
I'm a 36 year old woman and I live with my parents. My dad has vascular dementia and was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year. He's been retired for 15 years now, and in that time walking has become his main hobby (he can go 10-15 miles, at speed, and think nothing of it).
However, you can imagine (or have most likely experienced) the horrors that causes when you add walking to extreme forgetfulness. The first we realised it was a problem was last year, when he didn't come home for 12 hours so we called the police. He was found, when a member of the public reported seeing someone walking on the duel carriageway. My dad could not remember where he'd been, only that it was "an adventure" (I'll say).
Since then, we've taken the following action:
1. We have a GPS tracker on a keyring which he carries everywhere. It texts me, my mum and sister if my dad leaves a designated area, and shows a map of his location on Google Maps. We also have another GPS tracking device which is inside a torch, which I can also text to get his location. These have been total lifesavers when he's gone off, or slipped off when out with my mum.
2. Not to my liking, but seeing no other choice, my mum goes with him everywhere. When you're in your 60s with your own health condition (she has an autoimmune condition) and you are literally having to go walking in the winter, sometimes as early as 4am, and usually 3 times a day, it is little wonder that when I checked my mum's blood pressure it was 197/97. When she has a day away from my dad her blood pressure goes back to normal.
3. I take my dad out. We climbed all 528 steps to the top of St Paul's cathedral last week, and danced around some of the exhibits in the Museum of London, and we've gone cycling around the Olympic Park in Stratford. We've been to the cinema, the casino... I love hanging out with my dad and I'm also aware that in a way his illness is bringing us together. He is a bit slow sometimes, because for some reason he now only wants to walk in between the lines of the pavement, but he looks so hilarious walking like that (and I tell him, and we both crack up laughing). It can be tiring though (he somehow managed to leave his phone in the museum last week, which I had to go back for the next day).
I work a stressful job as a dentist, and I'm only 3 months into a 3 year distance learning masters degree. After getting my dad' s diagnosis last summer I was in two minds about whether to take it on. I've had tinnitus every night since about October, and I know it's the stress. I almost wouldn't mind if the ringing in my ears was a bit more tuneful, like if my ears could play the UK Top 40, or better still some Kenny G then I might get some sleep.
I am worried about my mum, because she doesn't have a life of her own any more. As soon as my dad wants to go out, she drops everything. She's on immunosuppressive medication so being out in the cold all hours, even when she's tired is just no good for her. It's just so overwhelmingly *intense*. I just can't see how this doesn't end up with her in hospital. When he wants to leave, getting him to stay is hard/next to impossible. He's really fit with no health problems other than Alzheimers so it also doesn't seem fair not to let him keep active.
I don't know how anyone else has managed in this kind of situation? I feel like my whole life is about work, or my parents, and it's driving me mad. So I need some solutions, and my mum needs some respite.
Reading some of your posts, about compassionate communication was really helpful. Usually the only way we can stop my dad from going out is to tell him it's going to rain. I have felt awful about lying to him, but I actually think it's time to step the lies up to something so gargantuan that he never wants to leave the house!... "No dad, you better stay in bed! It's 4am and the *martians* are coming!"....
"Walking, now? Oh no dad, did you not hear, the Plague is making a comeback worse than 1665!"
"You want to wear those shoes? I'm sure I saw mouse in your shoe. Better wait until the exterminator gets here."
If it's for his own good....
