Just thought I would post this, as it makes me smile, in the midst of other difficult stuff.
My mum is 86 with dementia, currently in sheltered accommodation and we're in the process of getting her into a care home as she is deteriorating fast. While she has always been a perfectly pleasant and polite lady, she has also been quite independent and self-sufficient, so when she and her late husband, my dad moved into sheltered accommodation nearly 10 years ago she would never got into the communal lounge, or join in any of the "events"; in fact she positively turned her nose up at this communal living type stuff -the Friday fish and chip suppers, the bingo (she despised bingo!) and just the basic sitting chatting with other old people. She was happy just with my dad or, when he died in 2008, doing her own thing.
But I have noticed as her dementia has got worse over the last 6 months, this reserve ( snobbishness even) has gone and she is regularly to be found in the lounge, sitting with other people, listening vacantly but smiling, as they chatter on. (She has vascular dementia and her speech is poor but she still enjoys being in the group) I read in the carer's records the other day that she was in the lounge having one of these fish and chip suppers so the carer didn't make her any evening meal. Yesterday I took her out and when I got her back into her flat, I took off her coat, sat her down and asked if she wanted me to put the television on for her. And her reply was "NO. I don't want to watch television - I want to talk to people!" So I escorted her to the communal lounge and fortunately there were some ladies there who welcomed her as I left.
It's so funny though, because this is not my mother as I knew her. I read about people with dementia getting depressed or isolated and yet mine seems to be going the opposite way. (Which incidentally makes me optimistic for when she goes into residential care because I think she will flourish with the organised activities they do, that in previous years she would have looked at with disdain
)
My mum is 86 with dementia, currently in sheltered accommodation and we're in the process of getting her into a care home as she is deteriorating fast. While she has always been a perfectly pleasant and polite lady, she has also been quite independent and self-sufficient, so when she and her late husband, my dad moved into sheltered accommodation nearly 10 years ago she would never got into the communal lounge, or join in any of the "events"; in fact she positively turned her nose up at this communal living type stuff -the Friday fish and chip suppers, the bingo (she despised bingo!) and just the basic sitting chatting with other old people. She was happy just with my dad or, when he died in 2008, doing her own thing.
But I have noticed as her dementia has got worse over the last 6 months, this reserve ( snobbishness even) has gone and she is regularly to be found in the lounge, sitting with other people, listening vacantly but smiling, as they chatter on. (She has vascular dementia and her speech is poor but she still enjoys being in the group) I read in the carer's records the other day that she was in the lounge having one of these fish and chip suppers so the carer didn't make her any evening meal. Yesterday I took her out and when I got her back into her flat, I took off her coat, sat her down and asked if she wanted me to put the television on for her. And her reply was "NO. I don't want to watch television - I want to talk to people!" So I escorted her to the communal lounge and fortunately there were some ladies there who welcomed her as I left.
It's so funny though, because this is not my mother as I knew her. I read about people with dementia getting depressed or isolated and yet mine seems to be going the opposite way. (Which incidentally makes me optimistic for when she goes into residential care because I think she will flourish with the organised activities they do, that in previous years she would have looked at with disdain
)
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