Hello, Please can you advise .
My dads dementia is increasing and last night he phoned to say he was worried about where my mum was because she wasn't yet at home. She's been dead 12 years. Do I repeatedly tell him or not? I did last night and he was very upset and also unbelieving .
I'm just starting to have to do this too. My mum and dad both have dementia (well dad did, sadly he died and his funeral was yesterday). They were married for nearly 61 years, but have been living apart for the last year as their 'dynamic' didn't work when they were together. It was one of the saddest things I have ever had to do when Mum moved to a different home. She was sad to start with, then started thinking one of the other residents was her husband/my dad, so she was ok. Then the care home asked for mum's new 'husband' to be removed as he was trying to escape all the time and breaking the doors - I actually feel this is an awful thing to do - if you can't handle dementia patients, you shouldn't really be offering dementia care, and Harry was rather sweet most of the time and everyone seemed to like him. Anyway, that's another subject.
We told mum immediately that dad had died - I'd been preparing her as he was in hospital for a couple of weeks, and we knew he wouldn't survive. She visited him once, but doesn't remember it. I probably wouldn't have taken her to the funeral, but my sister insisted (and she's not the sort of person who takes no for an answer, but thank goodness I persuaded her to come with me to see Dad in the funeral home before she took mum there, as the poor old thing really did look like a corpse and it would have definitely upset mum!). In the intervening couple of weeks, the care staff said mum knew something had happened/someone had died, but didn't really know who. She seemed to think it was her dad, and I did put her right on a couple of occasions as it seemed only fair. When we were about to get into the funeral cars, she decided to pop to the loo first, but was worried she would get left behind. I told her not to worry as she was the 'guest of honour'. She asked why, and I again had to tell her that it was her husband's funeral. She burst into tears and asked why no-one had told her. This is what I had been worried about. Anyway, she seemed to understand and we gave her lots of cuddles. During the service, when my sister and I, their grandson and godson all said a few words about Dad, Mum was fine - didn't cry, didn't seem to know what was happening really. And then she had a lovely time with all the family at the tea afterwards at my sister's house and when I took her home she said she'd had a lovely day out. All well and good.
But when my sister saw her today - Mum had a dentist appt - Mum asked if Dad was coming too, and my sister told her again that Dad had died. Naturally, Mum was upset. My sister is not one for lying to Mum - she says she never will - but I feel it is awful for mum to have to keep learning that the love of her life has died. I have got quite good at glossing over questions about dad before he died and changing the subject so as not to upset her. and it feels like the kind thing to do, but it's not always possible.
It's so hard. Has anyone found a good way to handle this? Mum is deteriorating quite rapidly - she has vascular dementia and Alzheimers which are both progressing - she doesn't really have a clue where she is or what's going on. I just hate to cause her any distress if I can avoid it. Am I being cruel or kind? It's tricky.
