Denial is the biggest problem and you don’t know what you don’t know or remember. My dad never admitted to forgetting things, it just gradually happened and got worse. He always blamed others, the world was daft, people were daft, they were late, not coming etc, things changed etc. Darkness during the day was a strange phenomenon and others thought so too, he got his night and day mixed up.
Items that went missing, were stolen or taken by someone else, so he would hide all sorts of items in his home to keep them safe, but forget were they were hidden, so again the only explanation was they had been stolen, it was a viscous circle. There was no reasoning. He lost words, everything became ‘thing’, or ‘you know’, ‘that place’.
He couldn’t accept change, but routine was good, he followed the same pattern daily, still shaved and combed his hair, but failed to understand he needed to wash and his clothes needed changing or washing.
Travelled miles on trains and buses every day and as long as nothing changed he always got home. But if a train got cancelled or changed platform he couldn’t accept it and would go wrong. He would hold onto a memory even though it was wrong or not his memory (something he picked up from the tv) and you couldn’t change it, until he would eventually forget or move on. For example saying he had been in the army fighting in Germany even though he wasn’t old enough. He had to get home to his parents house, or he’d been offered a job but worried how to get out of it.
He became obsessed with having money in his wallet, visited the bank daily, even weekends and during the night and would stand and wait expecting it to open, but he didn’t understand the value of money, he would burn it, give it away, hide it, lose it, spend it, carry around as much as he could on him. It also wasn’t his money he was taking from the bank, he didn’t have any, it was the banks and they paid him for doing a job, his job was walking to the bank.
TV became an issue, he couldn’t concentrate on it for long, the people on the Tv were talking to him, things that happened on tv became his reality sometimes and he would get upset or angry with it. He would make drinks and food for people that weren’t there or on the tv. He couldn’t make a drink of tea anymore or prepare a meal in a microwave. Strange combinations of food, the same meal each time he went out to the same place.
He no longer recognised himself in photos or in the mirror, that person was old or spying on him. He didn’t understand pain or when he was causing harm to himself. He no longer slept in his bed. He would get angry and aggressive with those that tried to help him.
He didn’t know he was being assessed or diagnosed when I eventually got a GP to visit him, he thought it was to look at his leg and when others followed, mental health team, Social worker etc, he disassociated himself from them and assumed they were there to see me. I never told him he had Advanced Dementia, we laughed about things going missing or him forgetting things and things going wrong. When I eventually had to place him into a care home, I took him out for ‘lunch’ and l left him there with all ‘those old crazy people’ and when I went back a few days later to visit he was amazed that I knew where he was and wanted to know how I had found him. He also wanted to go home, but a day later he didn’t remember home, but he still remembered the bank and the need for money. He climbed out of a window and escaped from the care home and walked miles looking for the bank.
He thought I was his wife, but couldn’t remember my name, he didn’t have a daughter he was too young, he saw a baby and watched the mother with it and then asked what they were doing with (my name). He always smiled at me and was pleased to see me and recognised me as a familiar face and someone he trusted and he never got angry with me even though he could get angry and abussive with everyone else. He was my dad.
