Hi, I've just joined Talking Point. I came here because I've been looking for some discussion about helping a person with Alzheimer's deal with grief.
My mum lost my Dad about a month ago. Her memory problems are fairly severe to the extent that she only holds details of a conversation for a very short time and cannot remember names of people in her village - but she still knows the names of her children and some relatives. She is fully aware that my father has died and very sad and depressed about it. She is very 'with it' in many ways and though she rarely knows what day it is, she can hold intelligent conversations on many topics.
My problem is that advice I'm finding online is mostly aimed at people whose dementia is already more severe but nevertheless I do feel that Mum's dementia may be hindering her going through the grieving process. Every day she thinks she is crying for the first time (although this is far from the case) and that her loss is 'hitting' her for the first time. Because of this she sometimes says her grief is getting worse not better. She generally doesn't remember conversations we have about grief - so perhaps cannot benefit from them so well. I think perhaps she can learn new things - albeit very slowly, over weeks rather than the minutes it would have taken her before dementia.
Of course anyone would still be struggling after so short a time (and she also has two other great pressures, namely fear surrounding her mental decline and decisions she is trying to make about whether to move into a care home) but I wondered if anyone knew of any resources giving advice in such circumstances or could share personal experiences which might help me support her.
My mum lost my Dad about a month ago. Her memory problems are fairly severe to the extent that she only holds details of a conversation for a very short time and cannot remember names of people in her village - but she still knows the names of her children and some relatives. She is fully aware that my father has died and very sad and depressed about it. She is very 'with it' in many ways and though she rarely knows what day it is, she can hold intelligent conversations on many topics.
My problem is that advice I'm finding online is mostly aimed at people whose dementia is already more severe but nevertheless I do feel that Mum's dementia may be hindering her going through the grieving process. Every day she thinks she is crying for the first time (although this is far from the case) and that her loss is 'hitting' her for the first time. Because of this she sometimes says her grief is getting worse not better. She generally doesn't remember conversations we have about grief - so perhaps cannot benefit from them so well. I think perhaps she can learn new things - albeit very slowly, over weeks rather than the minutes it would have taken her before dementia.
Of course anyone would still be struggling after so short a time (and she also has two other great pressures, namely fear surrounding her mental decline and decisions she is trying to make about whether to move into a care home) but I wondered if anyone knew of any resources giving advice in such circumstances or could share personal experiences which might help me support her.
