All about Dementia
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janet88:
uncle has parkinsons...it started with right finger shaking. he has suffered more than 20 years. now he cannot talk and swallow as muscles have tightened and on liquid diet through a tube inserted in the stomach.
If I am not wrong, I think LKY also has Parkinson's Disease. He choked on his food, luckily his security guard was there to save him. -
It’s quite sad for dementia sufferers. I work in a firm selling health care products. Sometimes, my customers will come telling me, My so and so suffers from dementia and has forgotten to pee in the toilet and how they have to clean up after the sufferers.
Recently, while in hospital, I witnessed an a/c of dementia. This 83 yr old auntie will keep asking her caregiver, "why my bedroom has changed". The caregiver keeps reminding her that she is warded in hospital. 5 mins later, the lady asked her helper same question again. And this went on for the whole day and the next day.
Which is why, it is important for the elderly to socialize and not stay cooped up in their comfort zone. -
Capturing culprit behind Alzheimer's
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/h ... alzheimers
Pardon me, is dementia = alzheimer ? -
starlight1968sg:
http://www.alz.org/what-is-dementia.aspCapturing culprit behind Alzheimer's
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/h ... alzheimers
Pardon me, is dementia = alzheimer ? -
Alzheimer is a subset of dementia.
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Any idea for Parkinson, how Long does it take from hand shaking to not able to walk or work?
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Hi there!
We are a group of students from NUS working on a project for our entrepreneurship module and we're looking to find out more about the difficulties that caregivers face when taking care of the elderly.
We have prepared a survey to gather insights on caregivers' challenges as well as possible solutions to these challenges.
We would like to ask for your help to reach out to people who have elderly at home and hire caregivers to complete the survey as part of our market research. (Link below)
All responses in the survey are confidential and will be kept anonymous. No personal information will be collected. Thank you for your help and time!
https://forms.gle/gN8UwGAWbimzkmZX9 -
A few weeks back, my MIL passed on suddenly due to brain hemorrhage. Prior to that, MIL had dementia (unconfirmed diagnosis) and paranoia disorder.
Last year, we suspected she had dementia but couldn’t really confirm. She always misplaced her stuff and we thought it was just old age issues. Sometimes her mind seemed very clear, sometimes she seemed very confused.
It was after her repeated accusations that our ex-helper was stealing her stuff, wearing her bedroom slippers and drinking water from her personal cup that we were alerted to her condition. Earlier, we thought she was trying to be difficult and scolded her till a relative pointed out that those could be her actual thoughts and that she could really be upset about her stuff missing. That prompted us to bring her see a psychiatrist and she was diagnosed as having Paranoia Disorder and mild cognitive impairment but her condition could not be confirmed as dementia unless we were to send her for a MRI brain. However, the psychiatrist advised not to as nothing could be done even for a positive diagnosis due to MIL’s age.
MIL was then prescribed Lexapro, a medicine to lift her mood as we found her hard to handle due to her being very paranoid. We were upset after we caught her throwing the Lexapro away which my MIL denied. Till now, we couldn’t tell whether MIL knew what she had done as she appeared very sure she did take her medication when confronted.
A close friend had earlier suggested that we put MIL at Day Care Centre where she would get to make new friends and the activities would keep her occupied. Unfortunately, when we wrote in to a handful of centres, all replied they were full. One thing we found amazing is, after the psychiatrist wrote in, immediately MIL managed to secure a place a Day Care Centre. I remembered on the first day to Day Care Centre, MIL was very upset and kept scolding hubby and refused to go but after the 1st session, she looked forward to go to Day Care Centre! Day Care Centre is a way to slow down the old folks’ deteriorating mental state as well as providing care givers some peace at home. I strongly recommend going for Day Care.
But the nightmare came during and post Circuit Breaker period. Think my MIL’s condition worsened, the effect of Lexapro didn’t seem to work as well and we had to increase her doasage to calm her down as MIL she was easily agitated and very paranoid (kept on thinking we wanted to harm her or someone stole her stuff). MIL would also kept asking the same question and often hear voices of relatives calling out for her downstairs. We were not aware how to handle dementia patients so we always ended up arguing with her. Within a month, her condition deteriorated so fast that she couldn’t remember whether she had taken her meals or not, couldn’t recall her age, and once she even asked my hubby if it was morning or night.
As I wasn’t trained in handling dementia patient, I think I did a really bad job taking care of MIL. Worse of all, due to personal reasons, SIL wasn’t able to help and hubby was not keen to send his beloved mum to Respite Care/old folks home. To put it simply, I was burnt out! I was her primary caregiver and was badly affected by her sudden death to the extent that l am now seeing a psychologist.
The purpose of my post is to share my own experience and raise awareness about dementia. With a rapidly aging population, we are expected to have more cases of dementia and it is high time we are more aware of the symptoms and mitigation measures. For caregivers who need someone to talk to, I have tried calling the local dementia hotline and I must say that the counselor did a good job. -
Take care lee_yl, dementia is not easy for anyone to handle. Medical science has no answers. You have been a fillial daughter-in-law, given the many years you have lived with your mil. I am sure both she and your hub appreciate that, even if they have not articulated it frequently.
Take care of your mental and emotional health. -
It isn’t easy being the primary caregiver, don’t be too hard on yourself.
Take care, lee_yl.
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