My MIL has AD and is living with us right now. She has six children all over the states and it is tearing them apart. I thought that a crisis like this would bring them together but it seems the opposite. Any hints or suggestions. Please. Also, how to get her to wash her hair...

Hi Susyg,

Welcome to the boards. We are glad you found us.

Sadly we find many crisis' in families bring out the opposite reaction of what we hoped for.

Could you give a little more detail about the nature of the rifts? Perhaps that will enable some of us with similar family issues to send some advice your way.

Ah, you're right. Gave no details. Since I'm in the middle of it I feel really fuzzy too. But I think it is mainly about who will take care of her, in what way and what to do about her house. Some of them want her to move back into her house with a caretaker. Seems to me like you need to have someone in town to supervise the caretaker. We are 600 miles away from her house. She is stage 5, doesn't know who I am and "wants to go home." She has tried to walk there a few times. This posting thing is harder than it looks like.
But thank you, I have learned so much from lurking on these boards.

If you use the find function (the purple box on the top left corner), there are many threads dedicated to the issue of wanting to go home as well as showers. I hope you can find some useful information there. Sorry about all that you are going through.

I do feel for you and the family turmoil. What I've read and seen from many others with many siblings, no one truly wants to NEGOTIATE FOR BETTERMENT OF THE ALZ PATIENT. Each one thinks what they know is the BEST and go to bat fighting to gain their way. If we all would stand back and re-think our actions and not be so pig headed, possibly the group could come to a conclusion of what's best for the parent.

Go back to years of schooling and how to negotiate.....what do they teach us in school?

My situation is different, as only sibling locally here dealing with mom -- as brother is 3000 miles away. I have to do it all...move her, clean up her 3500 sq ft home to sell, visit her and be her advocate, take care of all her bills, etc. But in the end, I do not have family conflicts and worry about--- will we all agree. I just do it, but it's very back breaking and emotionally stressful for me as THE ONLY CAREGIVER.

Could you all sit down in one room and discuss the situation and vote on best option?

Best to you as I do feel your pain...

On the hair-washing -

Couple possibilities in addition to strategies for getting them into the shower or tub.

There's no rule that says hair has to be washed in a tub or shower. Or that it even has to involve water. And it definitely doesn't need to be done daily or even every couple of days, either.

1) you can get shower caps that have no-rinse shampoo built in. You microwave it very briefly to warm it, as I recall.

2) no-rinse shampoo in a bottle works very well.

Have used both these products w/ my mom. They also have a very good no-rinse product in a bottle for folks where a shower or tub isn't a good idea for whatever reason.

http://www.norinse.com

quote:

Some of them want her to move back into her house with a caretaker. Seems to me like you need to have someone in town to supervise the caretaker. We are 600 miles away from her house.

Yes, you're right. Tried this with my mom and supervising a CG from another state is a non-starter. And it wasn't good for my mom either.

Part of what family members need to realize is that home is no longer a "safe haven" in your mom's mind. In my mom's case, it was 2000 square feet chock-full of stuff she doesn't recognize as hers, doesn't know how to use (and if she tries, it doesn't go well). You know, really new, high-tech stuff like saucepans and radios.

Coming to that realization is really difficult for family members, because we're all accustomed to thinking of home as the one place where you always feel safe and calm.

My mom is now in an Alz-certified small group home (wonderful place!) and streamlining her daily existence down to what she could (kinda-sorta) handle has done a lot for her quality of life and happiness.

There are a lot of motives as to why children of AZ patients want to help or not. Sadly, some of them are not for honorable reasons, such as money (if mom has any). Try to find out what they can or can't do to help, but if they are not nearby, you're (or husband) going to be the boss. If they don't like it, they can move back!

It sounds like everyone wants what's best, but has different ideas of what that is.

In that situation, when the motives are good, a few family meetings with a family counselor or social worker can be very helpful in getting all the ideas out and sorting them and helping prioritize them and helping everyone get on the same page.

Often some of the ideas aren't really practical, or don't reflect an accurate understanding of the disease and what is involved as it progresses.

Family meeting with a couselor sounds like a good idea but so many of them are "not talking" to each other now... OTOH, that dry shampoo idea is fabulous. I knew about that but I got it in my head that she had to take a bath/wash her hair or I wasn't taking her to church. Sometimes hard to remember to be the one to be flexible.

Sponge baths are good too. Right now my mom takes showers, but we've had two lengthy stretches where she strongly didn't want to bathe. So we went with sponge baths.

But we couldn't call them that - she was opposed to "sponge baths" because they are "dirty" - so we called it "freshening up with a damp cloth" and she was fine with that.

quote:

so many of them are "not talking" to each other now

Start with the ones who are and go from there.