My Mom is 82.5 and is just plain angry and mean and rude at times. I have had her live with us for almost two years now and she can be funny and nice at times, no doubt, but lately just angry at the world and expects everything out of me. I feel like I'm slowly suffocating at times. I continue to be nice but it is making me sick inside.
I can relate to all, however, every situation is different. My mother lives with me and I know there are changes in her behavior, Bad at times but I feel people know. As I read the comments I think I understand her even more... She was a widow @ 42, and was very active volunteering with children, all over county, hell she still wants to volunteer but no one will take her because of her age, she is 86 this year. She wont addmit it but her health is failing. she hates being 86 with a passion and I think this is were her anger comes from that she will take it out on anyone if shes in the mood... I just hope and pray she can find some peace & happiness now
Steve - your profile says you are taking care of your mom, living at home, with A/D. Your question indicates she is mean, nasty and rude, doesn't listen and has sold her home and has nowhere to go. This posted 1.16.14 approx.
The same day, Eyerish posted, suggesting a need for more information. 3 days later, 1.19, you have received some answers but you have not responded to the request for detail. For example, how was your mom diagnosed with dementia? Where is the doctor involved? If she sold her home & has nowhere to go yet lives "at home", where is she now? At her home with sale pending, escrow not closed? Or at your home and where is the money? Or was she under water with a reverse mortgage or something like that?
Your posting is like a science experiment that doesn't provide answers, just more questions. Because we're flying blind, everyones answers here so far, including mine, are just stabbing in the dark so to speak.
Typically, if you were to describe your moms behavior to a doctor who is experienced in dementia, your mom would probably already be on some form of medication. Some folk subject to medication for dementia patients. If you cannot find a nutritionally oriented doctor (and, granted, they are hard to find), or have done enough nutritional research yourself to where you are confident enough to try some products it may be helpful, prescription medication is all that is left to you in cases such as your mom's.
Doctors should always be considering what they call the Risk/Benefit ratio. When talking to my patients, I explain this as follows: Make sure you have more to gain than you do to lose. With dementia, unfortunately, it is either a temporary level or progressively downhill slide. Dementia patients certainly may have physical pain but they also suffer mental anguish that they cannot articulate. In every single case of dementia within my personal care taking experience, medication has eventually become absolutely necessary.
The type of drugs that help, and whether they do or not, take some time and some trial and error. But there are also some faster acting medications that can be used in the interim, to get them over the hump and quell their emotional distress.
So, again I mention, where is your mom's doctor in all of this? Are you your mom's Health POA so that you can have a conversation with her doctor? Even if you aren't, you are not prevented from dropping off a letter or emailing the doctor about your moms condition and destructive behavior. Notifying the doctor draws him or her into the circumstances, generally requiring some form of action, even if that action is to release the patient to another doctor. It does make the doctor more responsible and somewhat culpable if something were to go wrong with your mom and they had enacted at all.
You can get in touch with you are county's Adult Protective Services to find out what your options are in their particular jurisdiction. Every County across every state in the nation has a different way of protecting seniors. More of them are becoming proficient in the problems of dementia, as the difficulties are growing on a nearly daily basis, especially with the baby boomers entering the fray.
While all of us here would probably like to know the outcome of your dilemma, you are only at the beginning of your struggle with this. If you want better guidance from many here who have already walked your path, please post with more specifics regarding your mom's situation.
Get her to a psychiatrist fast! She could be in a psychotic state so get a 72 hr. hold on her at a psychiatric facility to have her evaluated. She is clearly thinking irrationally.
Yes, I think you hit on a reality, Keepontryin....that is the fact that many of our elders are feeling poorly, and in pain of some sort or another. Their lives have become unmanageable to themselves, and now they're reliant on others to help them. They feel lousy, both physically and emotionally, and are just plain MAD about it. And who do they take it out on? Often it's the ones they're closest to. They do it because they have no control anymore, and that's about the only way they can have a sense of power. Your Mom was angry when you said you were going to take a walk on a beautiful day, and she probably was so jealous and resentful of her miserable life...wishing she could take a walk on a beautiful day, but didn't have that ability anymore. So she lashed out at you, just because you were there, and easy to lash out at. I feel sorry for these angry people, and can empathize with them. The trouble is, it doesn't make it any easier to be on the other end of the bitterness. It's kind of a vicious circle. The meaner and angrier they are, the less people want to be kind to them, or help them. People are more inclined to keep their distance, or be mean right back. Sad...but true. Maybe, as GiGi suggested, there's a medication that can help with this. Otherwise, just protect yourself as much as you can, by letting it go in one ear and out the other, and try very hard not to take it personally. Just know that they are lashing out, but deep inside they just hate themselves, and their plight, and it's nothing to do with you.
My mother can be quite nasty too. The doctor doesn't think she has dementia. She is in a lot of pain from compression back fractures. She has always been self centered. I think she that her world has become so small that she thinks that its fine to be a bully to get her way.
Yesterday she demanded that I come to the nursing home immediately because the aides refused to put her in the bed. Turns out that of the 3 aides on duty, 2 were men and the female was on break. She refuses to let the males help her. She said she was too old "to put up with that" and demanded that I do something about it. I said there was nothing I could do. I think she expected the female aide to come off her break and help her. She expected me to raise heck with the director because "there weren't any aides available". The men didn't count. I said I was going home as it was a beautiful day and I wanted to go for a walk. This made her even madder she said she was "sick of me being on a diet and it wasn't her fault I was fat' and "why should she be punished for it". My jaw dropped, as repeatedly in this site we're told to take care of ourselves. My way to do that is to walk every day, diet or not.
I'm just venting too, because I'm not sure what to do about it either. Angry though my Mom can be she wouldn't have sold her house and expected to move in with me.
You have my sympathy for the loss of the mother you've known all your life. And to make it worse, she needs help and perhaps will resist getting it. She needs to be examined by her doctor, better yet a geriatric specialist, to determine the cause of this new behavior. Possibly some medication could tone down the nastiness. So sorry. If it's dementia, it doesn't get any easier from now on. God bless.
Why did your mom sell her house if she didn't have another arrangement lined up? How advanced is her dementia if she was able to sell her house? I'm not sure I understand your question. Maybe if you gave a little more information it would help people to understand what's going on with your mom.
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The same day, Eyerish posted, suggesting a need for more information. 3 days later, 1.19, you have received some answers but you have not responded to the request for detail. For example, how was your mom diagnosed with dementia? Where is the doctor involved? If she sold her home & has nowhere to go yet lives "at home", where is she now? At her home with sale pending, escrow not closed? Or at your home and where is the money? Or was she under water with a reverse mortgage or something like that?
Your posting is like a science experiment that doesn't provide answers, just more questions. Because we're flying blind, everyones answers here so far, including mine, are just stabbing in the dark so to speak.
Typically, if you were to describe your moms behavior to a doctor who is experienced in dementia, your mom would probably already be on some form of medication. Some folk subject to medication for dementia patients. If you cannot find a nutritionally oriented doctor (and, granted, they are hard to find), or have done enough nutritional research yourself to where you are confident enough to try some products it may be helpful, prescription medication is all that is left to you in cases such as your mom's.
Doctors should always be considering what they call the Risk/Benefit ratio. When talking to my patients, I explain this as follows: Make sure you have more to gain than you do to lose. With dementia, unfortunately, it is either a temporary level or progressively downhill slide. Dementia patients certainly may have physical pain but they also suffer mental anguish that they cannot articulate. In every single case of dementia within my personal care taking experience, medication has eventually become absolutely necessary.
The type of drugs that help, and whether they do or not, take some time and some trial and error. But there are also some faster acting medications that can be used in the interim, to get them over the hump and quell their emotional distress.
So, again I mention, where is your mom's doctor in all of this? Are you your mom's Health POA so that you can have a conversation with her doctor? Even if you aren't, you are not prevented from dropping off a letter or emailing the doctor about your moms condition and destructive behavior. Notifying the doctor draws him or her into the circumstances, generally requiring some form of action, even if that action is to release the patient to another doctor. It does make the doctor more responsible and somewhat culpable if something were to go wrong with your mom and they had enacted at all.
You can get in touch with you are county's Adult Protective Services to find out what your options are in their particular jurisdiction. Every County across every state in the nation has a different way of protecting seniors. More of them are becoming proficient in the problems of dementia, as the difficulties are growing on a nearly daily basis, especially with the baby boomers entering the fray.
While all of us here would probably like to know the outcome of your dilemma, you are only at the beginning of your struggle with this. If you want better guidance from many here who have already walked your path, please post with more specifics regarding your mom's situation.
Yesterday she demanded that I come to the nursing home immediately because the aides refused to put her in the bed. Turns out that of the 3 aides on duty, 2 were men and the female was on break. She refuses to let the males help her. She said she was too old "to put up with that" and demanded that I do something about it. I said there was nothing I could do. I think she expected the female aide to come off her break and help her. She expected me to raise heck with the director because "there weren't any aides available". The men didn't count. I said I was going home as it was a beautiful day and I wanted to go for a walk. This made her even madder she said she was "sick of me being on a diet and it wasn't her fault I was fat' and "why should she be punished for it". My jaw dropped, as repeatedly in this site we're told to take care of ourselves. My way to do that is to walk every day, diet or not.
I'm just venting too, because I'm not sure what to do about it either. Angry though my Mom can be she wouldn't have sold her house and expected to move in with me.