u/JustineAlexandra

My dad has vascular dementia and we are losing him day by day. It has been about 2 years since we realized he is not just forgetful but has a disease that is going to steal everything from him. Visits are devastatingly sad or maddening. I keep trying to find ways to entertain and connect with him but he just can't concentrate/understand - not books, puzzles, movies, conversation. One thing that has helped me is to write his obituary - I have been taking my time with it and asking the occasional questions of my mom and of him to fill in the blanks. I don't tell them why I'm asking. (He has very strong memories of certain events and I plan to include these in the obituary as they are clearly so essential to who he is that the memories live on despite his damaged brain). The process has really helped me to see him not as he is now or even what he was like just before dementia but who he was over the course of 88 years. These last years won't make it into the obituary. They do not define him even if they define his day to day life for this sad period of time. Loving someone with dementia forces a long, drawn out mourning period. Writing his obituary has helped me acknowledge that I have entered that period. When I feel sad about his situation - and ours - I pull up the obituary and read it a few times, tweak it. It always makes me smile and I feel proud of him. I recently added a picture that I thought captured him during his happiest years. It feels like a powerful way to push back on the horror of dementia.

I feel guilty about even asking this but driven to ask by some of the recent postings highlighting horrific quality of life in memory care - people sitting like zombies, belted into chairs, being spoon fed. When my dad was in his 60s he drew up his wishes for healthcare if he couldn't make his own decisions. He stated that he did not want to be fed. If he couldn't feed himself, he would just not eat. Will they allow this in memory care? Is it cruel to place food in front of people and just have them not eat? Give them the chance to eat on their own but offer no assistance? He was also clear about not wanting a feeding tube. Is this something I can even ask for him, that when he doesn't eat, the food is just taken away?

I've had my cpap machine for about 2 months. I have not slept through the night with it - in fact, I'm getting less rest than before cpap. Either waking up and feeling like something has gone horribly wrong and pulling off the mask or tossing and turning awkwardly and not falling asleep for hours and then giving up. On the verge of ditching it. I got a chin strap so my mouth doesn't open. I can breath fine if I'm just watching a movie or reading. But shortly after falling asleep - if I can fall asleep with all this head gear on - I'm waking up and feeling like I need to get rid of the mask - no question, it just has to come off, breathing isn't right. Have other people felt this way and just kept trying? Did it eventually work? How long did it take?

My father has vascular dementia. He has severe memory issues. Mobility is shutting down. No ability to make decisions or entertain himself. Has to be prompted and helped to shower and dress. For the last year, his mouth has hung open and he either has a hazy not there look or a deer in the headlights look. He lives in AL with my mother. My only goal now - after taking care of lots of the practical issues - is to give him some moments of happiness. I've struggled to do this with trips out to places I thought would interest him, walks, puzzles, magazines, etc. It all seems futile and often I just think I should just give up on trying to create some kind of stimulating life for him. But the other day, I had him over to the house and put on a documentary. It was about a tragic situation at an Air Force radar station in the early 1960s. My dad was an engineer and worked on one of those during the same time period. The narrator spoke slowly, showed lots of documents, drawings, and footage from the time to explain how faulty engineering caused this radar station to collapse in a storm. Usually my dad will fall asleep when trying to watch TV. I think it just overwhelms him because he can't follow what's happening. But after a few minutes, I looked over and his face was completely transformed. He looked like the person I used to know. His mouth was shut and his brow was furrowed - it was the expression of someone deeply engaged in understanding the details of something that really interests them. I didn't think it was even possible for him to hold his mouth shut anymore as my understanding is that the part of his brain that controls this just doesn't work anymore. I'm convinced that for an hour, he lived in the past with a healthy brain. Toward the end of the documentary, when the platform sunk, he started to tear up a bit. (Dementia has made him much more emotional.) And then the hazy look returned and I took him back to AL. He won't remember the documentary or going to my house so I think I will have him over regularly to watch it. I don't know if this might be helpful to others but wanted to mention it. It was some magical combination of the familiar jargon, the careful explanation, the fact that it was set in one of the happiest eras of his life. Maybe these visits back to the past are the best thing I can offer him.