Hiding symptoms

[Cinder]

My MILs sister is visiting.
Tonight they went through some old photos. Although MIL remembered most of the people, the events themselves were lost. We are quite shocked as we thought she was only at the short-term loss stage. It appears she is much better at masking than we realised....


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

 

[Linbrusco]

My MILs sister is visiting.
Tonight they went through some old photos. Although MIL remembered most of the people, the events themselves were lost. We are quite shocked as we thought she was only at the short-term loss stage. It appears she is much better at masking than we realised....


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

Yes its a hard one allright. On the surface my Mum ( diagnosed with AD 2013) still seems to remember most from her childhood and growing up in Scotland talking as if itvwas yesterday, but show her a photo from her childhood she cannot even pick herself at times let alone her parents.
I showed her an old photo of my brother and she mistook him for my Uncle that died over 20 yrs ago.
When Mum was 20 she lived in Africa when Dad was in the Army.
When Mum was 53 she went to Papua New Guinea to visit when my sister lived there.

She will see a photo of the two time periods but mixes them up.
How can she see herself as a 53yo thinking she was 20 and living in Africa?

Now she is starting to forget who is related to who.
Asking me the other day if her Great Aunt was her mothers sister.....( she is) If anything its this that has finally made Mums sisters and brothers realise that we are not just making Mums Alzheimers up, and she is far more advanced than they realise.

 

[Grandma Joan]

Covering up

It is quite extraordinary that even when the brain is deteriorating, it is also capable of coming up with strategies to cover up what is really happening

My MIL has some really good answers for when she can't remember.

If we ask her what she has had for lunch she says "oh something out of the freezer"

If we ask her what time she got up or went to bed she says "the usual time"

But then we realised it must be distressing for her when she knows she can't remember and covers up. So we don't ask her those kind of questions anymore.

It is a concern though because we never know what she has eaten, but we do know what she hasn't eaten as plenty goes out of date in her fridge and we have to throw it away.

And it makes conversation much harder as we are always striving for conversation that doesn't include challenging her on her memory. Surprising how hard that is

 

[stanleypj]

And it makes conversation much harder as we are always striving for conversation that doesn't include challenging her on her memory. Surprising how hard that is

But at least you are trying Grandma Joan. I think we all have to learn that challenging a PWD on their memory is counter-productive, even cruel. There should be no judgement involved either, it does not help to to think of it as deceitful. I'm sure almost everybody would try their best not to let people know how difficult they find something that used to come naturally. It's one of the many appalling things a PWD has to try and deal with.