My 91 yr old mom was a very talented artist with a modest career. When she moved in with me last July she was creating small collage pieces that required thoughtful composition, photo selection, etc. In short, they were complex, nice pieces.
Within several months her dementia began to appear and the "quality" deteriorated and eventually these pieces were basically one photo cut out of a magazine, typically National Geographic because the animals were "cute" and glued to cardboard.
Last week, however, she produced a collage that resembled her earlier work. She still does the single photo collages but where did her brain get the skill to produce something similar to her earlier work? Her dementia is fairly pronounced and consistently declining so how does one pull this out of their hat?
Thank you for your insights.
She even joked with him! She had no time or interest in him AT ALL before she went into MC. Never really even liked baby boys!
She remembers where she had hidden the little stuffed animals that he likes to play with. She can't remember one minute ago, generally.
Her connections definitely do strange and wonderful thing when our little guy is around!
There is no rhyme or reason to Dementia.
If by chance the dementia patient’s brain happens to “light up” it may briefly work perfectly or sputter a bit and stop working, or not work very much at all.
Before Covid we loved the visits that were my LO at her best, and overlooked the not so good visits as much as possible.
Parts of your LO’s brain may be relatively intact, but she can’t always activate them or activate them at her command.
How beautiful and fortunate for you that she has created what may be her last “good” effort for you so that you and she can enjoy it together.
I know how hard it all is, to navigate the ups and downs of dementia; my 95 y/o mother suffered with it for 5+ years and I watched ALL of it with my own two eyes. Wishing you the best of luck with a very difficult situation.