Our mother is very dignified and passionate about her dignity. However, she does not want to wash her clothing or bathe. How can we convince her that it is necessary to shower once in a while and to wash her clothes? Her hands are also a terrible mess. She never washes them.
Your mothers brain is now broken and she will never be the same person she was before, so you and your siblings while doing your best to care for your parents I'm sure, must realize that there comes a time when you must seek either outside help to come in to assist with bathing and perhaps even cleaning the house and doing laundry, or it may be time to be looking into having your parents placed in an assisted living facility with a memory care attached for your mother as she gets worse.
And the fact that in your profile you say that your mother "needs to be able to drive" even though she gets confused, scares the bejesus out of me and for all the innocent people that may be in her path one day and that she may hit and injure or God forbid kill.
Really, now that has to stop TODAY. I know that you say that someone usually goes with her when she drives, but you are only asking for trouble by allowing her to drive.
Do you realize that if she was in an accident and injured or killed someone, and the police found out she had dementia, that your parents could lose everything they own in a lawsuit?
This is serious and it's certainly not worth taking the risk of innocent people getting hurt or killed because you feel your mother "needs to be able to drive."
Take away her keys, dismantle the car in some way and let the DMV know of her dementia diagnosis ASAP.
And then you and you siblings start looking into what your parents future care looks like.
Pick up a copy of the book Understanding the Dementia Experience by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller on Amazon so you can learn about dementia and how to deal with your mother and what lies ahead. Dementia is a progressive disease that worsens over time until death.
I had to place both of my parents in Assisted Living after dad broke his hip and segue mom into the Memory Care building when her dementia became more than the AL could manage safely. Both AL and MC did a good job maintaining her dignity with love and caring. Even when she was dying with hospice, her "girls" asked me if they could dress her in her beautiful tops and not a nightgown to receive visitors paying their respects. Since she was comatose, they had to cut the tops down the back to get them on her w/o too much fuss. I said sure. She looked beautiful even as she lay dying at 95.
I know the pain and heartache this brings, and how difficult it is to watch the decline of parents, especially with dementia. It's a cruel and relentless disease that I hate with every fiber of my being.
We don't "want" to take things away from them, yet it's our job to keep them safe when they no longer have the ability to do so. Wishing you the best of luck with a difficult situation.
I wonder what she really wanted:
a) Congratulations for the wonderful job she was doing.
b) Prayers, and confirmation that Jesus is on her side.
c) Praise for how brilliantly her mother was coping with dementia. Gee, all that poetry! And hand holding in the supermarket!
d) A magic wand, sent over the net, to overcome the effects of dementia.
I was beginning to doubt and I keep going back to see if I could or should have worded my comment any more gentle.
I did not want to make any more comments "defending" my reply for fear of further upsetting the OP
My mother had dementia. She also would not bathe for me or even eat more than cookies . The doctor told me that Mom would never listen to me again . She won’t want to be told what to do by her daughter . The doctor said at some point most dementia patients will not listen to family and need to be taken care of by non family . Please find an assisted living facility for your parents where they have caregivers 24/7. They can not live alone anymore . If needed sell their home to pay for it. I do hope your parents have you or a sibling named as POA .
1. Your mother is not the same person who was dignified. She's allowing herself to be dirty for extended times and her clothes aren't clean. This is because she has dementia.
2. Your mother does not need to be able to drive. She needs to be able to get places, and she needs someone else to take her. If she forgets to turn the car off, what else will she forget? Which pedal is the brake? How to work a turn signal? What STOP signs mean? You cannot let her keep driving. She has dementia.
3. You want to convince your mother of something. Those days are over. Her brain doesn't have the capacity to understand. She has dementia.
4. You and your sister are doing full-time care. No, you are not. Full-time means full-time, not when one or the other of you can be there. Mom needs 24/7 care now. She has dementia.
You and sister should make a detailed plan for your parents' care, and there's no shame if you can't do all of it yourselves. There comes a time when that's impossible. That seems to be now.
Please go look at some assisted living places so you'll know your options. Managing in-home care for two people is extremely difficult and time-consuming, and the best thing for them would be a place where they can socialize, make new friends, and be cared for by professionals. It would be good for them and good for you.
Good luck as you explore the options.
2. Your mother can no longer handle certain aspects of her ADL's (Activities of Daily Living)
She needs to be make that must be accompanied to the bathroom. It is important that she properly clean herself as well as her hands.
She needs help showering.
If she gets into PJ's to go to bed her clothes can be removed and clean clothes put in the same place for her.
If your dad can not manage doing these then you need to consider placing mom in Memory Care. The other option might be to place both in Assisted Living if mom is not at risk of escaping and dad would watch her.
Your mom has dementia you can not "convince" her.
They all had their heads buried in the sand and let her walk all over them. Nobody wanted to be the 'bad guy' and they were staunchly hanging on to the idea that if they ever put her in a home, she'd die in a week.
Guess what?
She's FINE. Well, as fine as can be. She's very bad off, mentally--they assumed a level 1 care (minimum involvement from staff at the ALF) and instead she comes in at a 4. There was some talk she was going to have to move to Memory Care. That's actually still up in the air.
I think that families mean well, but cannot take of the rose colored glasses to see the reality of what's going on. It's hard, I've watched DH and his sibs prop her up for a year+ of what they thought was independent living.
IL at the cost of 6 adults giving up THEIR lives to make her happy. And she still wasn't.
Dementia is awful. DH states his mom is crazy. I keep telling him she's got dementia. He refuses to believe that, on some level. At least now he understands that she truly is a mean person at heart-and the dementia makes that worse.
They put her in an ALF yesterday and the only comment DH made was 'we should have done this 5 years ago'. Amen to that.
At least she didn't fight us on giving up driving. Too many close calls--she sold her car and didn't look back.
One of the very noticeable signs of dementia was when my once immaculate MIL stopped bathing. Maybe 6 weeks ago? I went into her now empty house today and the stench about knocked me out. That alone should have clued the kids into the fact things were not 'right'. Sure hope she got a shower today. The ALF will not allow people to go about smelling. Showers are 2xs a week, no matter what.
That is not fair of him to expect you and your sister to be the only one’s helping . You will burn out . Perhaps you or your sister can distract Mom in another room in the house while the other speaks to Dad about this. Do not give him a choice. Tell him it is too much for two people to cover . This is a common problem where the elderly refuse “ strangers “ to come and give care . This often results in burn out for the family caregivers resulting in the elderly being placed sooner in a facility . Tell him that you and your sister need to be able to take care of yourselves as well or you won’t be able to care for your parents . I’m sorry they are being stubborn about this . Your mother can not make decisions like this as she does not accurately recognize her deficits and care needs.
Being a caregiver means you keep them safe , it does not mean you have to make them happy . You are now the parent and they don’t like that . At any given time you and your sister have the choice to say you can not provide hands on care any longer and your father would need to hire help or you can help place your parents in Assisted living . Please do not get swallowed by FOG ….fear, obligation, guilt. I learned on this site that “ Those that need help need to be the ones that compromise”. But your parents are wanting things their way. There is another member here that says something like ….” .nothing gets an elderly placed in a facility faster than stubbornness “.
Some of the responses you get here will be very matter of fact. Accept that and please don't be hurt by it. You will get lots of loving support as well so ignore anything that hurts or annoys you. You will disagree with some advice. Again, just ignore it. Don't throw away the excellent advice due to a few things that will inevitably rub you the wrong way. I've had some responses to me that have really pissed me off too but I get way too much valued advice and support to consider leaving.
With dementia, as others have said, the brain is broken. Your mom is no longer the same lady she was before she developed this horrible disease. Yes, there are moments she seems like your regular old mom but don't let that fool you. You have to set things up for the worst of her condition, not the best. Mostly because she will slowly but surely continue to decline.
Does dad drive? If not, the keys and the car need to disappear. If you have to be the grownup and take care of this, please to it ASAP. My mom was very angry when the doctor told her she had dementia and could not drive any longer. 2 years later, she still brings it up! Knowing she was unsafe, I knew it was over. I could not have dealt with the guilt if she had hurt or killed someone. Dismantle the car somehow so it does not start. Lose her keys. Get the car towed away and make excuses for why it's not back yet. Same vague answer every time.
Hygiene is tough. I would wash her hands every day, multiple times. My mom would lick her fingers at meals a lot and it totally grossed me out. I knew damn well that she was NOT washing her hands afterwards and felt like my whole house was contaminated. Yuck. So before meals just say mom come over here to the sink so we can wash up before breakfast/lunch/dinner. And the thing I found was not to ask but to kindly tell. Don't ask her if she wants to. Just say it's time to X. If she realllly doesn't want to she can still say no, but being assertive helped me get mom to do a lot of things I know she would have balked at.
Get a cleaning lady. Then hire an aid, say for 3 hours once a week. Then increase it more and more until you and your sister are not getting driven into the ground. A good aid can do her shower, etc. I found the best aides were in their 50s and 60s. The 20 year olds were just not assertive enough. You guys need help if you intend to keep them at home much longer.
Best of luck.
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