My mother was never warm and fuzzy to me, or anyone else, but now she is getting rather mean. She says horrible, nasty things about me to other relatives, and then says nasty things about them to me. Is this her true nature showing through after a lifetime of control and restraint? Or is this a new form of personality developing out of her unhappiness and confusion of rapidly worsening dementia?
I always explain this to any family. That the work for the client must get done for their own health and safety. Also, I have boundaries in my service that I will not tolerate being crossed.
For example, a client who becomes verbally abusive and physically aggressive because they don't want a soiled diaper changed or to be cleaned up. When distraction, subject-changing, and promise of a treat fails, then a drill sergeant's yell in the face becomes the necessary response to get it done. Yes, this sounds harsh and it is, but a person recovers a lot faster and easier from a little fear and hurt feelings then they will from incontinence sores and UTI's.
I've had many who would start up with vicious insults often seasoned with extreme profanity. Ignore the language when you can but not the work. My first response it to let them know that I don't care what you call me or what language you use, you're still getting changed, washed up, and taking your medicine. When that wouldn't work, I know how to insult and swear too and will.
I find that if a person with dementia is still verbal, they still have self-preservation instinct intact. Part of them still has understanding if they can verbalize and get aggressive. It has served me well professionally to not be passive in such care situations.
She's 94 now with moderately advanced dementia and even MEANER than ever before. Filthier mouth, cusses like a sailor, has nasty things to say about everybody who's 'abandoned' her, and yada yada. So her 'new' personality is the same as her 'old' personality, just saltier and even more intolerable than ever before. Now she blows kisses to her caregivers who think of the world of her in the Memory Care where she lives, and curses out her family members like we're dirt under her feet.
Old misery = continuing misery but worse nowadays with dementia. That's my take on things. Add to it a huge amount of confusion and confabulation, and you have a real MESS on your hands!
Saying untrue and totally fabricated lies about how horrendous her family is likely gets her the sympathetic attention and comfort she wants.
It's part of the job to go along with some nonsense if it helps to keep a resident cooperative. That goes a long way when the care has to get done. It's easier for everyone to get the care done when the person is calm and compliant.
If they were to contradict her and call her out on the terrible things they hear about her family and the profane language, she would very quickly stop being well behaved and it would make the care work that much harder on us to get done.
Take it from an experienced elder caregiver. They don't think the world of her. They're doing their jobs. If the work gets done smoothly by not contradicting some dementia resident's harmless nonsense, then we won't contradict their nonsense. Most of us who've been around for a while can usually tell. Either way we really don't care if what they say about their family is true or not. We do our jobs and try to get the work done with as little upset and fuss as possible.
Please, don't worry about what her caregivers might think of you or your family. Most of us take what we hear with a grain of salt, or sometimes ten grains.
My Mom suffered from hallucinations and some paranoia but on the whole she was nice. The aides loved caring for her.
If the person has behaved a certain way all their life, and they then had a traumatic brain injury and began to act differently, what would you think was the cause of the behavior? She's undergoing similar damage, but it's not visible.
Her poor brain is all jumbled -- who knows how she's able to interpret her day?
It's not her, and it's not you, it's the disease. Doesn't make it any easier though, right? But be assured that if you got along tolerably well up to now that this isn't some dislike that's been supressed for years, but just all the connections in her brain being haywire.
A couple of the replies were helpful in that we don’t always know what area of the brain is affected at any given time.
She said some very nasty things to me, and I figured it was probably the way she's always felt about me. I wasn't the daughter she wanted to have. Of course I was the only local sibling. I found the brother worship hard to take (particularly of one of them; the one who hardly ever visited!).
I have never believed in the "put up, shut up, offer it up" advice, and I greatly resented the stress I was put under. The solution for me was to request payment for the time I spent with my mother. The POA brothers had no problems with that. So once I was being paid $20/hour (gifted, as Medicaid would never be involved), I treated my time with her as just a job.
Whatever the reason behind the verbal/emotional abuse, none of us have to put up with it.
When I do this, I remind myself to not take things personally.
Their personality changes because of the disease. It is horrible getting old. Think about how their body feels. The elderly have pain much of the time. Their body does not function properly and they feel useless and feel like a burden to all. To make matters worse, now their brain gets broken.
Best we can do is be informed, be patient with them, love them and try to help them feel useful.
Yes, the present situation is rather terrifying and sad. However, it is not your fault in any way nor an indication you will face the same problems. Dementia that begins with those over 60 is NOT hereditary. However, all dementias are progressive, so it is important to work out how to face the future: For how long will Assisted Living cope with him? What might be your next move? How do your (and his) financial resources apply to this situation? Take care. We all do the best we can with the challenges life throws our way.
Love and Prayer
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