I’m hearing this same painful thing a lot lately.Aging parents who have “early dementia” are refusing help and verbally abusing their adult kids who are trying to help.
In all these situations, the aging parent was a controlling type person before dementia developed. It could have been a business owner, a professor, a CFO of a corporation. The nearby adult child is is trying hard to protect mom or dad from himself or herself. The parent is uncooperative. In fact, in all these cases, the parent has turned on the very person who is trying to supervise, protect or otherwise do the right thing for Mom or Dad.
“You’re stealing from me!” is an accusation the adult children are hearing. (It’s not true in these cases. to which I’m referring) “You don’t care about me, you’re just trying to lock me up!” is another accusation.
This could be you. When your aging parent turns paranoid, accusatory, abusive and unreasonable, what can you do?
Full Article and Source:
'My Dad Has Dementia - He's Being Horrible to Me'
It's so hard when parents or loved ones "turn" on the people who are caring for them. It also makes it easier for guardianship.
ReplyDeleteVery sad, but we have to remember that dementia often changes a person's personality and those persons don't mean to be horrible.
ReplyDeleteI read an article by a woman who said that in order to keep the peace, she did not fight her Dad and just went along with whatever he was saying or doing.
ReplyDelete