Downsizing with Dementia

fence 2 Photo by Shawn Henning, via flickr.

By Amy M. Collins, editor

I’ve blogged before about my grandmother and her dementia, which has long since been staking a claim on her memory. A few years ago I wrote a post called “No Country for Old Women.” In it I tried to describe the feeling of helplessness that my family felt when a series of providers had failed to diagnose the cause of sudden delirium superimposed on dementia . . . a frustrating game of hot potato had ensued, with each physician passing her around to the next. It ended when a nurse finally diagnosed her with an impaction.

A similar sinking feeling strikes me as her dementia advances, and again, there seems to be no place for her to go. At her independent living center, we know she’s just barely scraping by. If it weren’t for the nurse we hired to keep an eye on her each day, her difficulty living there would be much more obvious.

Our nurse faithfully calls to let us know when my grandmother has forgotten to shower; when she’s been seen in the same clothes a few days running; when she won’t stop cleaning the break room, the distant memory of her long-standing career as a housewife stubbornly clinging to her; when she’s been found wandering the corridors at night. I think we’ve kept her there so long because everyone there loves her, she’s allowed to have […]