Caretaker’s journal, from the papers, translated…
Shortly after my father had passed away, my mother who’s ninety years ago, not only deteriorated quickly, her ability for comprehension had, reduced to ZERO too, either that she started speaking off topic, couldn’t express herself at all, couldn’t identify the members of her family, her days became nights and nights became days, sleeps during the day, and wants to go out for walks late at night, and, as she’d opened up the fridge, she didn’t care of the foods were cooked, just, placed them into her mouth, and, the foreign hired help had often found the meds we’d given her in between the cracks of the couch too.
At first, we’d thought that it was because she’d missed my father so, causing her to behave so waywardly, and flipped her living schedules upside down, it was my wife, who’s very tentative, who’d told me, that my mother may be, demented.
not my photo, but this is the sort of intimate, body-to-body contact that the article is talking about…
After the head of the neurology department at the hospital given my mother a simple test, and found that she couldn’t do single-digit additions, and couldn’t writer her own name anymore, lack of sense of direction, and she didn’t know where she lives either.
Then, the CT confirmed, that it was, Alzheimer’s, and I’m truly grateful toward the doctor for explaining it to me so thoroughly, and that, was when I’d learned, that there are no known cures, that the patients would become suspicious, believed that the meds, the foods that families administered to her are all, poisons, and that we were stealing her things, and would never come home, and she couldn’t take care of her living from day to day.
Although the doctor prescribed the meds that may help slow the progressions of my mother’s Alzheimer’s, but, he’d reminded us, to keep watch over her personal hygiene, in case of infections. Because of her years, her blood vessels lacked the elasticity, if she’d stood up abruptly from the toilet, it may cause her to have a posture-caused low blood pressure, and so, we’d added the railings in her bathroom, and, as she need a bath, we’d used a chair to help her. The nurse’s aide could help bathe my mother, without her slipping easily. Because she could no longer chew, in order to prevent her from choking, we’d given her juices, and cooked the foods to extremely soft, and watching my mother take her medication, to make sure she didn’t, spit it back out. The doctor said, that the patients with dementia usually have problems with loneliness, childishness, delusions, sense of inferiority, and being suspicious, so, the family members or her caretaker needed to, pat her on the back often, touch her forehead, kiss her cheeks, hug her, and using these physical intimate contacts, to make the patient feel safe and loved.
keeping up with socializing is especially important, NOT my photo still…
If the children can treat their elderly parents with kindness that flowed from their hearts, but, sometimes, it may be very difficult to, but, having the patience, the care and concerns, the compassions toward one’s own demented elderly parents, is a must!
So, you can see, how the progression of dementia goes, the person had gone from just becoming more and more forgetful, to completely forgotten how to manage her own life, and needed help around the clock, every single day, and, she’d started having, suspicions of someone out there to get her, and, eventually, the suspicions might develop into full-blown delusions too, and, there’s nothing we can do, but to make sure that we spend as much time as we possibly can, with the aging elderly who had been diagnosed with dementia, as much as we can.
Life, the Obstacle Course 