Yesterday was a quiet day for the most part although Mom suddenly turned on my husband in the morning. It began innocently enough. Mom picked up her container for her dentures from its usual place and started to take it to her room. My husband reminded her that it was kept in its usual place so that I could take care of them for her and we wouldn’t lose the container. That’s all it took!
Evidently Mom didn’t know who was talking to her. She told him multiple times that he shouldn’t talk to her that way, that she had “family, you know” and she was “going to get out of here”. He remained calm and she finally stomped off to her room.
The rest of the day followed our normal routine and just after 4:00 she began her normal wandering about the house. At the dinner table, she began talking about how she had this pain and that and that the doctor had called her on the phone. My husband and I reminded her that she has seen the doctor and that he is aware of everything and that seemed to appease her.
Mom went to bed at 9:00 and we followed at 10:00 as usual. At 12:38 am I woke up to head to the bathroom. When I stepped in the hall, both Mom’s door and the bathroom door were open but Mom was nowhere to be found! As I got my key for the hallway door, Steve joined me and we found Mom in the living room on the couch – she had crawled under the hallway door! AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
She said she was scared because “they” were going to get her so she had to get out of there. She couldn’t verbalize who “they” were so I told her to show me. She was afraid of the sliding doors on her closet in her room! “They” were going to attack her!
I also found she had removed her Depends – usually she keeps them on – so I got those back on her and got her back in bed. Then our work began.
We had to do something to keep her from crawling under the door – it’s important to realize that she is 94 and the door is only 12 inches off the floor. Low enough that I don’t want to go under it! I know from the forums and my support group that folks with dementia, however, can be very creative if they want to get somewhere. To get us through the night, we barricaded the area below the door with a gate and heavy footstools that she wouldn’t be able to move.
Although my husband’s comment after being awakened abruptly to find another issue was, “If this continues she’ll have to go in a home”, he later said he already had thought of a way to put a sliding extension on the door.
My job today – get any furniture out of her room that she could possibly move to climb OVER the gate!
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