I try to think of things that might stimulate my dad's very sporadic and ever decreasing memory when I go and visit him - he has Picks disease and is gradually fading. His voice is getting quieter and quieter and his speech is ever more muddled, and apart from the odd moment of clarity most of the time he just repeats back what people say to him. The only blessing is that he never seems to be in distress - he's in his own little world, very quiet and sleepy.
He has occasionally been interested when visitors have sat with him and read the paper to / with him and point out interesting bits and pieces - he can't seem to be able to read at all any more - I expect its just too hard for him to make any sense of the written word now, so I thought - what could I do that won't be too taxing?
He enjoys the TV so maybe something to look at ... today I took in my laptop with some pictures of a recent trip to London and Longleat - I showed him the pictures full size on the screen and he looked quite interested (in as much as that's possible with a permanently almost blank expression, which is what he has most of the time). He repeated some of the animals names after me and had a little smile when I told him about the monkeys climbing on the cars ...
It seemed to be relatively successful, until I opened a photo of myself and my 14 year old daughter together, and he had absolutely no idea who she was
- I wonder if, in his mind she is still a little girl, when in fact she's a young woman now
horrible how things catch you unawares .....
He has occasionally been interested when visitors have sat with him and read the paper to / with him and point out interesting bits and pieces - he can't seem to be able to read at all any more - I expect its just too hard for him to make any sense of the written word now, so I thought - what could I do that won't be too taxing?
He enjoys the TV so maybe something to look at ... today I took in my laptop with some pictures of a recent trip to London and Longleat - I showed him the pictures full size on the screen and he looked quite interested (in as much as that's possible with a permanently almost blank expression, which is what he has most of the time). He repeated some of the animals names after me and had a little smile when I told him about the monkeys climbing on the cars ...
It seemed to be relatively successful, until I opened a photo of myself and my 14 year old daughter together, and he had absolutely no idea who she was
- I wonder if, in his mind she is still a little girl, when in fact she's a young woman now horrible how things catch you unawares .....
