Hello again!
My dad (has vascular dementia) keeps (weekly approximately?) asking how his mother is. My dad is 85, and his mother died coming up for 40 years ago, when I was about 4.
My mother / his wife died last October, and in the last few months he's needed the occasional reminder in a way that prods his memory gently then he remembers. But we're certain (and I try to keep a habit of referring to my mum by her first name so to reduce confusion), that he's talking about his mother by confirming her by name.
As gentle honesty has worked well for my wife and I reasonably well before we've continued this strategy so far with my dad, but the last 2 maybe 3 times he's asked he's been responding along the lines of "I know she's dead but how is she?", and we're wondering whether maybe it's time to start helping him maintain a confused fantasy by saying she's fine, though how far to take this 'maintenance' is a possible question.
Something that isn't helping IMO is that (at least according to other family members) I have a bit of a poker face, and I think my dad is starting to think that I'm verbally fencing with him ('spirited discussion' has been a long-standing tradition in this family) or being less than completely honest with him when answering this question. He also recently accused me of "fixing it with his doctor" that his application for a driver's licence would fail. When pushed to this point I've been responding with the aim of disarming honesty, and he usually backpedals with some BS logic like I wasn't intentionally conspiring against him or intentionally being evasive with him.
Re his mother - she's been the person that he's been wanting us to go and see; she used to live at the other end of the country. According to his brother, his mother when she had dementia used to ask for her mother too.
Thoughts?
My dad (has vascular dementia) keeps (weekly approximately?) asking how his mother is. My dad is 85, and his mother died coming up for 40 years ago, when I was about 4.
My mother / his wife died last October, and in the last few months he's needed the occasional reminder in a way that prods his memory gently then he remembers. But we're certain (and I try to keep a habit of referring to my mum by her first name so to reduce confusion), that he's talking about his mother by confirming her by name.
As gentle honesty has worked well for my wife and I reasonably well before we've continued this strategy so far with my dad, but the last 2 maybe 3 times he's asked he's been responding along the lines of "I know she's dead but how is she?", and we're wondering whether maybe it's time to start helping him maintain a confused fantasy by saying she's fine, though how far to take this 'maintenance' is a possible question.
Something that isn't helping IMO is that (at least according to other family members) I have a bit of a poker face, and I think my dad is starting to think that I'm verbally fencing with him ('spirited discussion' has been a long-standing tradition in this family) or being less than completely honest with him when answering this question. He also recently accused me of "fixing it with his doctor" that his application for a driver's licence would fail. When pushed to this point I've been responding with the aim of disarming honesty, and he usually backpedals with some BS logic like I wasn't intentionally conspiring against him or intentionally being evasive with him.
Re his mother - she's been the person that he's been wanting us to go and see; she used to live at the other end of the country. According to his brother, his mother when she had dementia used to ask for her mother too.
Thoughts?
