@colfac92 would it be easier not to bring her over?
@HouseChatte It sounds like your mom is in a great situation with supportive neighbors who keep an eye out for each other. I would make sure you know the resources available if/when you mom may need some additional assistance.
My niece and her husband came to visit today; they didn’t stay long because it is next to impossible to carry on a conversation with my mother. She tried to come into my kitchen to visit a little while and tell me about my brother, but Mom made Alyssa’s husband bring her to find A. Then she made A bring me to get ‘her little blue pill’ which she doesn’t get. So they sadly left, hoping to come back and stay a couple of days; hopefully I can take some time off and we can cry on each others’ shoulders. She did say my brother is in diapers now, I am amazed that his wife is willing to change him.
Mom isn’t sleep walking, she has always waked up in the night but sometimes she stays in bed and tries to go back to sleep. I just wish that she and my brother could be in the same memory care unit, but I am five hours away and hold POA. Oh well.
As a reminder, if your parents have an IRA, they must take a distribution every year after they are 70 1/2. There is a huge penalty if they do not. Just make sure that they have taken a distribution this year. My MIL died in December last year. DH and siblings were lucky that she had taken her distribution earlier in the year. If they have had a severe decline this year, it might be missed.
@GTalum , might have been but 'tis done.
Too long, too-detailed story, but here’s how the day went: When I arrived at the nursing home to pick her up (10:00 am), she was not yet dressed and wasn’t sure she wanted to go out that day – she had lost track of what day it was. When her Medicaid funding came through last week, the home had moved her from the “rehab resident” floor to the “permanent resident” floor. In her old room she had a calendar that she could see from her chair, and the staff would write what day it was on a whiteboard, but this hasn’t been set up in her new room yet. At least her roommate (who moved with her) insisted that mom take the window side of the room – it has a nice view and is sunny in the morning. Anyway after some texting with my sibs, some gentle persuasion with mom, and the dismay expressed by her nurse that she was not dressed yet, we convinced her to get dressed and make the outing. I left the room to give her some privacy, and came back 15 minutes later.
Her COPD is such that she couldn’t push her walker the length of the hall to the elevator without stopping twice to catch her breath… Finally get her in the car, it’s 11:00 now, so text my sibs that we should go to the restaurant for lunch first before going to the house. Get to the place around 11:40 and my sister’s car is there, but text pops on up on my phone from sis that restaurant is closed – my phone doesn’t show texts while driving, so this was old text, but I was confused (I mean, sis’s car was there!). So after helping my mother get out of the car I went looking for my sister (turns out restaurant opened shortly after sis got there, and she had texted that to my brother, but I didn’t get that message). Anyway, while I was distracted looking for my sister, mom fell to her knees trying to navigate on her own with her walker over the short step up through the entryway door. Two patrons rushed out to try to help me get mom back on her feet (she’s pretty heavy).
We finally get in to the restaurant and seated, and then waited for my brother. Lunch was fine (if slow). Escorted mom to bathroom on my arm since there were two steps involved and navigating through the restaurant would be easier w/o the walker. Left the restaurant, got her in the car, arrived mom’s house 1:30. Seated in the middle of her living room, she was surprised at how much stuff she had. The focus turned to her books (she has a LOT of books), and we went through the two main bookcases and selected a small tote-bag’s worth of books that she wanted to have with her in the nursing home, plus a box-full of books that she wanted to keep but didn’t necessarily need to have with her in the nursing home right now. There was some discussion about where we should donate all the remaining books, and mom brought up a box full of old magazines that she remembered (we had cleaned that out the previous day). I said “That’s already gone.” Mom said, “I hope it has gone to a good place.” My brother said, “Oh, it’s gone to a very good place!” (the recycling center). After that, sis took mom into her bedroom to review the jewelry and knick-knacks on her dresser. Again they selected another small tote-bag’s worth of things to go to the nursing home, avoiding anything that had any significant potential monetary value. Meanwhile I found a small bookcase that might fit in her room and got that cleaned out, and brother was continuing the work he started the previous day cleaning out the basement… Another trip to the bathroom (incontinence is an issue, and the pad mom was wearing had been overcome by the day’s activity, based on the wet area on the chair in which she had been sitting).
As we were getting ready to leave (now 3:30ish) mom was expressing interest in possibly coming back to the house another time to go through more stuff. We all tried to discourage this line of thinking, and are hoping that it will slip from her mind once she is back in the nursing home. The reality is that our collective schedules are such that we probably couldn’t pull off another outing like this for another month, although we hope to make further progress in cleaning the place out before then (not sure how we’re going to manage that, though).
So back in the car, stop at the Post Office to pick up any mail from her box, back to the nursing home (4:25), help her get situated back in her room, bring in the two tote bags and the small bookcase, unpack those things and set them up…
Overall, it did not seem as emotional for mom as I feared it could have been. Of course maybe it is all only just sinking in now that she’s back at the nursing home. I hope she is not too much of a wreck. At least she’s now got some of her most prized books with her to turn to for solace.
@colfac92 That actually sounds like a pretty good outing and nice outcome. It is all a hellish process.
It will sink in slowly for you , too. So just plan to let it flow. Great that your sibs were there to help. I moved my Mom in by myself and that was really really hard. Once she was in, we never let her back to her house.
My Dad never went back to his house, but we did have to go to clean out his office a few times (he and his wife owned a business together, she left him in October 2015 and he went on a downward spiral and was diagnosed with severe dementia in August 2016 and moved to a Memory Care facility). After our visits to the office he would get very depressed, so I eventually I stopped taking him. In hindsight I think he started to have dementia 10 years ago, but the people who lived with him (his wife (not my mother) and her adult children) were too busy to notice. I think when she left there was no rhythm and consistency in the house, which contributed to his abrupt decline.
When FIL/MIL were moved out, she never returned, he kept trying to get people to take him back to the house, we had to warn them all once it was rented not to take him!
@colfac92, sounds like all the usual, typical, annoying unplanned changes to the best laid plans! But a good end result, everyone survived and hopefully no one cried.
Just remember: “I’m keeping it for safekeeping” and get rid of it. What helped a lot for my parent’s last move, was to hire a company which is also a charity and a residential treatment program for drug addicts. They have a moving company plus a thrift store. I asked them to move the stuff that will fit into a bedroom and bring the rest to the thrift store and give us a receipt. The only problem is that I had a bunch of overbought food and cleaning supplies that were never needed and overbought personal care stuff. Plus all the trash! Now I have a garage full of silver stuff I don’t want. Anyone know what to do with that stuff besides just donate it. DH says he will try to sell it but you know that isn’t going to happen. I’m sure the pawn shops are full of that stuff.
Has anyone had their APOE4 status checked? I did since both my parent’s showed signs of dementia in their mid-70’s and in long term care early 80’s. Dad has one copy of it and I assumed I did. Happy to say I don’t carry the gene, but I still consider myself high risk. My cousins think they must have experienced some sort of shared viral or environmental factor leading to decline.
Silver plate is not really wanted by anyone 
Sterling, maybe. Maybe eBay.
@GTalum super news about the ApOE 4 status !!!
You will probably think this is great news, as I do.
Bill Gates is determined to find a cure for Alzheimers, focusing research on brain inflammation.
@SouthJerseyChessMom Very great news! I have some problems with the article. It mentions Gates encouraging us to think outside the box, which is correct. But then it brings in other quotes from those folks who keep saying “if we catch it early we can prevent it.” We have no evidence of this. In fact, current tested and failed therapies, such as the ones that remove amyloid, may be more harmful. This goes against what Gates is saying in that we need to move beyond Amyloid and Tau and find a different understanding of the disease.
@GTalum well, we don’t know if caught early it will be prevented, but clearly all the late stage amyloid reducing drugs haven’t worked.
So the “inflammatory” process is hot topic. And, usually if inflammation is prevented, or caught early better success, at least with other conditions.
I’m hopeful and feel that Gates will reset the Alzheimer’s research !
I think Gates is on the right track, I just don’t know about the other researcher. But, if we don’t really know the cause of Alzheimers, how do we prevent it? Yes, the inflammation is a promising area. But, if I was found to have plaques and no dementia symptoms, I would not want a medication to decrease the amyloid burden because it might make it worse, like it does in those with later stages. I just think we need to find the cause rather than focus on early detection. And yes, it’s likely multi-factoral. Anyone read the book, “End Alzheimer’s” by Dr Dale Bredeson? I plan on getting training for the protocol.
@GTalum have you read about erosion Of the Blood brain barrier, as a possible cause of Alzheimer’s ?. Our protective blood brain barrier wears down from the onslaught of medications- allergy meds, anticholinergics- - benzodiazapenes, pesticides,maybe anesthethia - ect ect …and,over time inflammatory process starts, as blood brain barrier weakens and leaks ?
Wow, @SouthJerseyChessMom, as someone who has taken allergy meds and anticholinergics for many, many years, this is scary to think that this may be causing bad brain changes! Sad thing is I can’t function without taking these medications, which are essential for my health.
My sister and friends have severe allergies and suffer without the medications, @HImom. It’s a difficult thing. What did a generation before us do when these meds weren’t an option?
Some of them likely died of infections that began with out-of-control allergies, in and out of the hospital with respiratory infections, etc.
I guess all we can do as try to take the smallest effective dose that will keep things well-controlled and accept things as a risk/benefit when we compare the alternatives.
“What did a generation before us do when these meds weren’t an option?”
It’s important to remember, they got dementia, too. Maybe there weren’t today’s various interventions to keep them going, physically.
There hasn’t been any sign of Alzheimer’s in my family until my (younger) brother. He was always the pickiest of picky eaters, even into his 60’s. Seven years ago both my husband and my mother were in separate hospitals, so he came to stay with me and help. At that point he was existing on chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream, and only that. I have to think that some of his lack of nutrition played into his situation of today, somehow.
Don’t worry about your allergy medicines everyone! Likely brain inflammation is the cause of much Alzheimer’s but the cause is muti-factoral and we don’t know the process yet. Is the blood brain barrier supposed to leak? Is it the job of other processes to “clean up” the brain and they aren’t working." Amyloid is probably the brain’s attempt to protect itself but we don’t know what from. Probably inflammation, but from where and what? Is it different for all of us depending on our genetics? The best we can do is keep a low inflammatory diet. Low in sugar and processed food and high in plants. Exercise and keep your heart healthy with a good blood pressure. What’s good for your heart is generally what’s good for your brain! Yes, the statin issue is also, IMO, unresolved.
I can tell you, my parents never ingested a anti-cholinergic and allergy meds were rare!