She's Searching...

For what, I don’t know – and neither does she.  She has done it at times, searching through anything she can open but this past weekend while I was away the need to do it seems to have become more intense.

I ask her what she’s looking for – I have to repeat the question because she doesn’t understand my words.  The response varies.  Sometimes she points to her head and says she doesn’t know, that her “brain won’t let her”.  This afternoon she told me that “they bring things at different times” and last night she said, “Oh, I gave that to Dad.”

The searching is not unusual.  Those with dementia will often start searching when they are actually trying to find something in their mind or when they are trying to wrap their mind around something and they no longer have the ability.  When we moved her down here – soon to be one year ago – she searched and searched.  I’m sure she was “looking” for her previous life and habits and my brother.  Over time she stopped searching and settled into her new life and routine.

It still comes back at times.  The day that her new doctor made the first home visit [anyone wondering look up Visiting Physicians Association on the internet to see if they are in your area and the requirements] set off a little search when he was asking her questions conversationally to assess her stage in dementia.  She looked in the baskets in the living room, looked at the pictures on the shelves and brought back a framed picture of my husband’s family telling the doctor that it was her family.  J  Then she went back to her room and brought back her family album with pictures of her daddy, mom, aunts and uncles, etc.  She couldn’t identify a picture of her own children or an older picture of Daddy but she did come back with a picture of him when he was in his 20s.

Interpreting skills are key when trying to figure out why she is searching.  To interpret you have to “live in their world” rather than trying to make them live in yours – something that is important for a caregiver to do at all times.  I do that but we’re getting to a point where it’s hard to tell what her world is.  She can’t communicate – she has some words and can even string together a sentence at times but neither the words nor the sentences are meaningful.  So I watch for clues or rack my brain for similar situations.

While I was away for the weekend, I’m sure she was searching for me – no offense to my sister because Mom was just looking for her “norm”.  When I returned, the searching came up again.  Why?  I finally figured out that the toilet paper holder that holds extra rolls in the bathroom was empty.  I filled it and the searching stopped – for awhile…  J