Mom was hospitalized from September 27 through October 9. It was a rough 14 days. Her behavior caused me to suspect dementia. Mom had EVERY symptom described in this Wikipedia article:
Dementia is not merely a problem of memory. It reduces the ability to learn, reason, retain or recall past experience and there is also loss of patterns of thoughts, feelings and activities. Additional mental and behavioral problems often affect people who have dementia, and may influence quality of life, caregivers, and the need for institutionalization. As dementia worsens individuals may neglect themselves and may become disinhibited and may become incontinent. (Gelder et al. 2005). Behaviour may be disorganized, restless or inappropriate. Some people become restless or wander about by day and sometimes at night. When people with dementia are put in circumstances beyond their abilities, there may be a sudden change to tears or anger (a "catastrophic reaction").[4] A common symptom of dementia for dementia sufferers to deny that relatives, even relatives in their immediate family, are their own relatives.
Thursday (1O/9/2013), I had the very difficult task of not only telling mom she has been diagnosed with dementia, but also that she would not be coming home to my house. The medical test revealed she will be needing 24 hour care. Even though I was pretty sure she had dementia, hearing the test results was a hard pill to swallow.
This is a conversation I had with mom 2 days ago. She was in a pretty good mood, even after telling her the news. Even though she is delusional in this conversation, this is what she’s like on a very good day.
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