ELDER CARE: a new scare

I got some disturbing news recently when I got home.  My “godmother” had a bout with dementia yesterday and wandered out of the apartment.  I call her my godmother but she is actually the mother of my best friend.  She is 77 years old.  A few years ago we noticed a slight change in her behavior.  When I say we I mean my friend and his sister,  he changes were small but still significant.  Slight but significant changes to her personality and to her memory.  Neither sibling chalked it up to dementia.  Having nothing but seniors in my family I let my friend know that she was getting older and she will not always be the same person he remembered.  At the time I was just referring to simple aging.  As one of my aunts got older her personality changed.  No dementia or anything like that.  Same with my mother.  But being that my friend and his sister didn’t have that exposure like I did or at least not recently I thought I would share with them my experiences.  Unfortunately a doctor’s visit revealed Vascular Dementia something similar to Alzheimer’s disease.  Over the next few months my godmother went from being a totally independent lady to someone unable to go out of the apartment by herself.  I noticed she would ask me the same question over and over again.  She would ask about my mother but also my grandmother.  I told my friend things to look out for and just advised him to keep up with her doctors’ visits and to try and see an elder psychologist. 

The subtle changes became more noticeable.  My friend lives in Brooklyn while his mom lives in Harlem.  He would take her to his place when he would have to go home.  She was familiar with his residence.  After a few months she began to get confused.  She would eventually realize where she was but even her home, in her mind, became wherever she was and she would behave as if she wasn’t there for a while.

Yesterday, my friend had a doctor’s appointment (he has his own health issues) and a few errands to take care of.  He couldn’t take his mom with him like he normally would and the weather was hazardous as the temperature was near 100 degrees.  He left her home.  It’s not the first time he did that.  When he got off the subway he got multiple calls from family members.  Apparently his mother got confused and left the apartment to go home.  She stopped a lady in the street and asked for help.  When the lady realized something was wrong she called a cop.  Thankfully his mom remembered some telephone numbers.

Some helpful suggestions in dealing with the elderly:

Keep telephone numbers in their bag
Keep numbers pinned to their pockets
Give them a cell phone and make sure it is onPossibly get a track phone
Call them often (from every one to three hours)
Take the knobs off the stove to keep them from turning on the gas.