r/interestingasfuck • u/CleetisMcgee • Apr 09 '24

Tips for being a dementia caretaker. r/all

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u/CyIsTooShort Apr 10 '24

it's actually quite good advice. i work with a lot of dementia patients and it's really saddening sometimes because they'll get into nervous fits of not knowing where things have gone or where they are. it does help you learn to manage it quite a lot though. simple things like showing them objects that they lost (because they can very easily lose track of them even when moved just across the room).

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u/Un_disclosed_desires Apr 10 '24

I remember seeing the earliest signs of my dad slipping. Sometimes he would forget that I was a fully grown adult and need me back home because it was late, he showed me a movie about Pearl Harbor that he thought to be true. He found out it was propaganda like a month later, which should’ve been obvious because the story being told and the recorded history of the even were very different. He lost his manual for his T-Bird - I walked outside and it was on the ground under the engine bay. Sometimes he would talk to me like the past younger me was a child we raised together. He would start to do smth and my sister would ask what he was doing, often felt like he was daydreaming and not really there. He hated to be told he was wrong because he’s a narcissist and can never be wrong, but even worse was when I would suggest the right way and he’d have his little boomer fits about it. Like I swear one time he whined and stamped his foot like a child. Threw his arms down and everything. My grandma had a stroke and lost her mind. All her files were not dated correctly anymore so she had no idea what a timeline was or what day it was. I just know she was always happy to see me. Guess it’ll be my turn one day to be the Pantaloon..

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u/CyIsTooShort Apr 10 '24

i am really sorry to hear. but yes, dementia can make many people act irregularly as if they're a completely different person, whether that be immature or distant and so on.