Common Issues With Dementia

so this is a list of the common issues that might very well come up during the course of the disease whoa holy but jeevers that's why you're stressed out because it doesn't mean they don't have a financial or a healthcare patterning they don't want one but they need one because they're making really bad decisions and choices and there's nobody and they're coming back from the doctor saying he says I'm fine and you're going did you tell him oh yeah you don't trust them not willing to go to the doctor at all you can look down here bad-mouthing you to other people making up stories that aren't true refusing the care that I need using drugs or alcohol to cope very common common thing if somebody used drugs or alcohol before watch that's a signal often that they're getting stressed out with their brain failure and they'll start to do it again and they will claim I'm just having a little bit I just had one glass of sherry you look in the trash there's three bottles in the South women don't talk about it they just do it mixing up day and night they're staying up all night sleeping during the day cat napping during the day you're also going to find that they can't get going apathy is one they won't follow the treatment plan some people sleep a lot rather than not sleep at all they have a hard time getting up and get going they can't seem to get the energy up to go do anything they will also sometimes perseverate early on it could be perseverating on sorting things in the wallet sorting things in the wallet sorting things in the walk going through the papers going through the papers going to the papers checking the check in the mail check in the mail checking mail as the disease moves forward though it could be more like come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here come here that repetitious spray it's called echolalia I get stuck and I can't stop saying something over and over I got to go home I got to go home I got to go home I've got to go home hey hey hey hey hey very irritating if it happens and very distressing but it's part of a disease process that we need to acknowledge and recognize we may also have sew up there my favorite swearing sex talk racial slur and ugly word now I've kept it real life my grandmother ms2 me and I did not even know she knew what MF was I mean ah and of course I made the mistake of saying grandma don't talk like that Jesus tell me how the hell to talk it was like well that worked really well I'm glad I use that technique but I do want to point out the sex talk in the racial slur racial slur is tough racial slur is a real challenge as a caregiver because it means often people you have and you're bringing in might actually trigger some of the behavior but so are ugly words hey you fat one come here you're an idiot shut up you're stupid and this is not the way I would have ever talked and that's probably the most important thing this is not me this is the disease it's a preserved area of brain function I'm sorry now in the plus in that same area is music that's the blessing and the gift you get the downside but you get the high side we also can have paranoid delusional thinking seeking people and people a cistern the path shadowing oh hey Larry how about you be there and I'll be your shadow you walk over that one hey where are we going wait don't leave me yeah come on lets us go whoa come on whoa not so fast okay come on I'm coming I'm gonna stay right here that's a nice shirt I like your hair that's nice yeah stay right here don't leave me now well look I like that that's pretty there you go and no don't wander off on me where are we going the right thing no I'm going with you I'm just gonna go with you yeah I can go too yes I can move that'll be fine I'm just going to go with you come on come on let's go this way and it is like velcro and here's what's distressing the place I'd like to be is a little bit behind you and to the side yeah yeah right here on the edge and every now and then I like to touch and mess and get out of the way trying to follow my friend yeah I'm coming yeah no don't leave me and these are people who don't want you to step away move away go away and you need to be away from me part of the day you can't handle me all day I'll wear you out and you will turn around at some point and say go down you're driving me nuts this is also a problem because he'll go in the bathroom and lock the door hey hey how much longer are you gonna be open the door now not only are you stressed out you're constipated and you don't like me very much because you're constipated and I'm the core of it and so you kind of say down and I sit down in two seconds later and if you do go away from me where have you been where have you why are you joining me here don't let it go away and this makes it really hard because you do need a team of caregivers and you do need to step away and you're gonna have to tolerate coming back and be being mean about it being ugly to the other person because I just want you because I trust you the best and it's usually the significant person in that person's life in that moment and they want to be right there well talk again about why this is so irritating but it has to do with my position relationship to your vision your hearing and your sense of touch it wears you out because of where I'm at and I'm choosing where I'm at because of my disease process I want you slightly in front of me so I can keep an eye on you because you're the guide that tells me what and where to go and that's why I want you there but it will wear you out and that's what you have to acknowledge you're human you're human you're going to need breaks from me because you're losing me this is not the me I used to be this is a different me and you can't stand me sometimes because it's not the me I used to be and it's really hard for you when you've known me much easier when you never know the person to be that shadow person and put up with it and you've known him it's really hard because I'm losing my words my language relationship with you as it used to be okay thanks fer now I do want to point out the last things down here we're not going to spend time on it but I want to point them out I want to point out the things I put up there that you don't usually see on the behavior list number one complaints of feeling pain and being sick honey I'm sick I can't please not now just let me stay here I promise I won't get up I'll just stay right here please not now striking out that's a very common but the fun's that aren't Falls and injuries we're going to talk about why that's so common in the later stages of the disease it's part of the disease process people will lose visual depth perception they will lose fine motor control in their body and they will lose balance and coordination because it's not about memory problems it's about brain failure and we keep forgetting it's about Springfield I'm going to show you pictures contractures and immobility people think people aren't walking people and that's why they're curling up into a fetal position that's not it they're curling up in a fetal position because their brains are done and when your brain dies it leaves all your muscles turned on and there's no off switch left and the on switch means all the muscles pull and the ones that are strongest for most people are the ones that pull in and across and forward and curl you in to a fetal position not because people want to do that but because that's what's left of their brain that's still working is the pull of the muscles it also means that people are going to have infections in the monia because when the brain gets damaged enough your brain is what tells your body hey whoa hey infection here we need to get the t-cells active which is going to get the white cell to go up which is going to give me a fever these people in the late diseases state don't get fevers their favorite you're lucky if it will go up to 99 degrees because the brain is not telling the body what to do it's not mounting resistance to an infection so you will know by behavior before you know by white cell count that somebody has an infection Brugha and you'll go ahead and do that urinary tract thing you'll do a you urinary call you'll get them to do the urinary cultural comeback well you know I don't know maybe maybe not but you can tell by behavior there cuz I got a hell look at they did up you get it you got it go out and get out of there go on we get a house down down and you go the hell go to hell go on go on get get a house gotta get again I got out I get a whoa you're like whoa what is with mom she's seeing things she's touching things on the floor she's reaching she smacking people or she won't get up it's like whoa what is going on by the time we figure out what it is it's like oh yeah big time urinary tract infection big upper respiratory infection pneumonia setting in pneumonia is the number one cause of death at the end of this disease the second most common cause dehydration because by late in the disease my brain doesn't know it's thirsty doesn't realize I'm thirsty I'm not hungry so we get to this last one down here problems with eating and drinking we are more invested in it than they are our problem is learning how to let them go in a positive way not in a negative way but recognizing it's about us not about them we're going to talk more about that because that's really important it's really important that we get that under our under our belt to understand

Channel: Senior Helpers National

Views: 616,267

Keywords: Senior Helpers, Dementia, Teepa Snow, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's Disease (Disease Or Medical Condition), Caregiver, In-Home Care, Senior Care, Education, Health

Id: u5QMeQpkPhA

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2013