My father is 58 years of age, a fresh man healthy physically but over the past few years has show signs of failing memory and a lack of interest in maintaining himself ie work or personally. He has changed from an independent man to one that needs to be shown/told what to do. Personally f...
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Response
Dorian Martin
Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 05:01 PM
Hi, Catherine,
My mom did the same thing - she stalled about getting the testing done with every excuse under the book. The only way that we got her to go to the testing was that I finally went and actually physically sat with her through every step of the way. (She'd get mad if Dad was there alone with her and would accuse him of plotting against her, so I was the "favored" one for this particular situation.) If she started to come up with a scheme to get out of a procedure or an appointment with the doctor, I could make sure she stayed. And if Mom started to argue with me about not needing the testing (or it taking too long), I would calmly (and kindly) say, "Mom, you know I love you a lot. You've told me several times that you know you have memory loss. We don't know what is causing the memory loss, but we do know that there are treatments that potentially could help you IF the doctors can figure out what's going on. To do that, you need to go through this test. And I'm going to stay here to support you while you're doing this because I know how scary this is for you." And then I'd just sit there with her, holding her hand and chatting with her on another topic to get her mind off it. Sometimes we had to repeat the above statement (because she forgot), but for the most part, it worked. Maybe something similar will work for you.
Good luck - and let us know what happens!
Dorian
Hi, Catherine,
My mom did the same thing - she stalled about getting the testing done with every excuse under the book. The only way that we got her to go to the testing was that I finally went and actually physically sat with her through every step of the way. (She'd get mad if Dad was there alone with her and would accuse him of plotting against her, so I was the "favored" one for this particular situation.) If she started to come up with a scheme to get out of a procedure or an appointment with the doctor, I could make sure she stayed. And if Mom started to argue with me about not needing the testing (or it taking too long), I would calmly (and kindly) say, "Mom, you know I love you a lot. You've told me several times that you know you have memory loss. We don't know what is causing the memory loss, but we do know that there are treatments that potentially could help you IF the doctors can figure out what's going on. To do that, you need to go through this test. And I'm going to stay here to support you while you're doing this because I know how scary this is for you." And then I'd just sit there with her, holding her hand and chatting with her on another topic to get her mind off it. Sometimes we had to repeat the above statement (because she forgot), but for the most part, it worked. Maybe something similar will work for you.
Good luck - and let us know what happens!
Dorian