Different Dementias, Different Approaches: Part I

Okay, I’ve recovered. But, let it be known, please, that I do not wear elastic banded, polyester pants and decorated sweatshirts to my job at a newspaper. Pretty as they were on her (and practical), this is not considered professional dress in my office. Besides, they didn’t fit me.

When Mom’s friend needed hearing-aids and she told Mom about them, Mom called the local hearing-aid people for a check-up. (She had her own phone, which is a whole ‘nother blog.)

Mom had very minimal hearing loss, and didn’t need them, but she bought $4000 hearing-aids. The best they had to offer. I swallowed hard. That would pay for a month in her private room, give or take a few hundred. But it was her money. And she was in a mood to prove it.

I explained that she had one month to try them and return them if she didn’t like them. She fiddled with them, off and on for a couple of weeks, then left them in the box. I started doing a count-down. Finally, I said, “You have one week to return them. You don’t like them. You don’t wear them. Don’t you want your money back?”

This was the wrong approach, as she considered it a challenge, but I didn’t know what else to do. None of the recommended approaches seemed appropriate here, so I tried logic. Not good.

She said she did, too, like them, and, to prove it, had me get new batteries and put them in. She fiddled with them each day, with me counting down the time. The last day, I said, “This is it. They have to go back today, or you own them.” She said she liked them and would keep them. That was the last day she had them in her ears. They sat in her drawer until the day she died.

Mom’s short-term memory loss; her desperate attempts to be in charge as she lost her mental capabilities; her wanting to buy new things as a form of entertainment and control – these are all quite common with her type of dementia. The recommended approaches helped, on occasion. But I was often flying solo.

My dad also had organic brain disease as a diagnosis, but, as you will see in my next blog, his situation was extremely different.