http:\/\/www.navair.navy.mil\/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.NAVAIRNewsStory&id=4801<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>You know, I go back and forth on whether I write about my parents and aging, what with wanting to be respectful of their privacy.\u00a0 But I am learning some things by experience that I think are useful to share, and maybe readers have had similar experiences that they likewise might wish to talk about in the comments.<\/p>\n
The background is that Dad has had declining memory for a fair while.\u00a0 He just turned 80, so he\u2019s not young to begin with, but in addition, round about five years ago, he had a head injury which worsened things considerably.\u00a0 Sometimes he\u2019s very engaged, and actively participating in the decision-making or activity, other times much less so.\u00a0 At a recent visit, he struggled to say how old he was.\u00a0 We played euchre and he did just fine, but played hearts and he seemed to forget that you want to\u00a0avoid<\/em> taking tricks\/hearts, and seemed to be pleased with himself when he played a jack, as if we were playing euchre.<\/p>\nBut back in November my sister, who lives near them (we are about a 5-hour drive away), toured a retirement community with them and, after years of saying he\u2019d never leave his house, he decided it would be a good idea to move \u2014 in part because his older brother had done likewise not long ago, in part because the particular community is expanding and had a two-bedroom unit with a patio available and the price tag was lower than elsewhere (because the services are less all-inclusive).\u00a0 So we made several trips to help with the arrangements, both financial and logistical, and this past weekend was a further trip to start the process of ultimately clearing out the house to prepare to sell it.<\/p>\n
In some respects, Mom and Dad are doing well.\u00a0 The community (a CCRC, or continuing care retirement community, that is, the sort with an entrance fee and multiple levels of care, in which they are at the \u201cindependent living\u201d level) has a monthly fee which includes one meal per day at the restaurant, and the seating is not simply couple-by-couple, but instead, they seat several couples or individuals together, among those who arrive at the same time and don\u2019t otherwise have people they want to be seated with.\u00a0 And Dad especially enjoys that \u2014 someone new to talk to, without obligation.\u00a0 They also have a housekeeping service and a home care aide comes to help Dad with showering and to make sure he takes his daily pills.\u00a0 He also goes to a \u201cmemory care\u201d-type program several mornings a week.<\/p>\n
But we have been struggling to get Mom to participate in the activities the community offers, and this weekend we learned more concretely why that hasn\u2019t worked out as we expected \u2014 without our entirely being aware of it, Mom has also had cognitive decline.\u00a0 Everyone always speaks of \u201cmemory loss\u201d but it isn\u2019t that, really \u2014 it\u2019s a decline in the ability to think, to decision-make, to make plans.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lack of executive functioning.\u00a0 There\u2019s a booklet full of activities and nothing looks interesting to her, and the idea of \u201ctry something out\u201d is lost on her.\u00a0 Plus, her hands are shaky in a way that wasn\u2019t really the case before, so I guess her lack of interest in the quilting and needlepoint groups makes sense, and she\u2019s overweight and in poor shape, besides.<\/p>\n
She had a doctor\u2019s appointment which was timed for while we were there, and the doctor did a basic diagnostic memory\/cognitive test and, well, she really struggled.\u00a0 Name as many things as begin with the letter F in one minute.\u00a0 Repeat a sentence.\u00a0 Remember 5 objects.\u00a0 Recite 742 backward.\u00a0 etc.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that all the sudden she\u2019s got Alzheimer\u2019s, but she clearly needs help and can\u2019t be expected to take the initiative to plan her days or find clubs to join, or even to make sure all the bills get paid, and we have to figure out how to make these things happen from a distance.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019ll be honest \u2014 in my mind, I would have expected basically a sort of black-and-white, a bright line.\u00a0 Competent or not competent.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not so easy.\u00a0 I spent some time this morning looking through the Calendar of Events and trying to put together a sort of \u201cplanner\u201d that she might use to keep track of what\u2019s going on each day that\u2019s more detailed than a regular calendar, something she could put on the wall (there\u2019s a metal access panel for the air filter at a visible spot, that you can hang things on with magnets like a fridge).\u00a0 But whether she\u2019d use it or not is another question.<\/p>\n
So that was my weekend.\u00a0 And now here\u2019s the part of the blog post where I invite you to share your stories.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Image:\u00a0 no, these are not my parents.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know, I go back and forth on whether I write about my parents and aging, what with wanting to be respectful of their privacy.\u00a0 But I am learning some things by experience that I think are useful to share, and maybe readers have had similar experiences that they likewise might wish to talk about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[814,939],"class_list":["post-13291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aging","tag-personal"],"yoast_head":"\n
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