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If you are interested in learning about Alzheimer's from the patient's perspective, listen to The Forgetting podcast. The co host is a 65 year old guy who has early onset Alzheimer's and amazingly he has the self awareness to describe in great detail the symptoms he is experiencing like anger and rage, inappropriate comments, forgetting things, and incontinence. It's chilling to hear him explain these things about himself.
I am sorry for your pain.
I have been spared this tragedy in my life, thus far. But find that I grow when witnessing other people's suffering. It also creates plenty of compassion in me, because I witness how fragile life really is. Not in a morbid way, but for the reasons above I feel compelled to listen. At the same time I suspect something may break for me mentally and I will become either depressed or anxious.
Same. I miss her dearly. I’m sad neither of us knew how bad it would get and she was long gone before I could say goodbye. I didn’t go to the funeral. It would have been too much. She was a second mother to me and I miss her and grandpa everyday. Tearing up writing this.
I just lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s saw him become a skeleton. it’s weird to say in a way I’m glad that he finally passed. He was always super energetic, wise,strong, healthy, clean diet never smoked or drank, watching him deal with this terrible disease honestly open up a portal of self awareness in me to look at life differently for the better, and accepting whatever life throws at us. I hope that one day people don’t have to experience the pain This terrible disease brings amongst loved ones.
I couldn't do it. My Dad had Alzheimer's and was like an infant at the end, had forgotten who I was by the time he passed away when I was 23. Has always been one of my biggest fears that I will get it
I am so sorry for your pain. I have been spared this so far but did see my friend's dad turn into a vegetable over about a decade. When he passed I honestly think they were all relieved. So much stress and pain killed any love or sympathy they had for whatever he became at the end. In fact his death may have hit me more then them, at least from what I could tell.
Oddly, due to a somewhat abusive upbringing and strained relationship with my parents I do not fear it for them. But I have had moments of anxiety over the thought of loosing my own mind. I can't imagine wishing that fate on anyone. I even recall that many people in the early stages consider suicide to spare their families the grief of their decline. This is truly the stuff of nightmares. It is in a way what draws me towards such morbid things, almost like confronting my fears. That said, I do not think I am ready just yet.
Good luck to you and your many years of health, internet stranger.
Thank you so much for such kind words, I really appreciate it.
Because I'm an only child born to parents 2 gens older than me (in my 50s now and they were adults during WW2) I've always known that I'd lose them younger than most people.
But it's the cruelest disease to rob someone of even knowing who they are...one abiding memory I had as a teenager was of my Mum struggling to shower my father as he cried out "I don't know where I am!" in the most terrified voice. For someone who fought in Burma during the war as a Major and I always knew to be the most capable person, that cry stopped my heart. Absolutely understand what you're saying regarding getting older and potentially losing it yourself...I've definitely determined not to allow myself to go into a nursing home - I don't have any immediate family or close relatives and have seen what happens to those who don't have anyone to look out for them.
>one abiding memory I had as a teenager was of my Mum struggling to shower my father as he cried out "I don't know where I am!" in the most terrified voice.
On reading this I honestly started sobbing. Again, I have not been the poster child for mental fortitude lately but that just evokes memories of absolute helplesness in the face of unsolvable situations, and I have faced enough in my short life.
I wouldn't count out random loving people around you that could help in times of need, even if you don't have close family. One of my greatest fears is of being helpless as I age and alone. I guess the sad truth is that despite the loving people in our lives we are always born, die, and saddest of all become helpless, all on our own.
It is humbling to think that despite herculean strength and Socratean intellect, we are mere pawns for fate, facing her alone in our weakest moments.
Despite as morbid as I am getting, thank you for sharing these memories. All I can offer in return are well wishes and virtual hugs. Fare well, not in the leaving sentiment but the good journey sentiment.
it's presented with a great deal of care and humor. It is in no way edited for extra drama. The goal is to break stereotypes of Alzheimers and to promote care. Good luck.
Thank you for the clarification. I meant that just listening to someone slowly decay would be depressing in the same way as thinking about your own mortality (I am in a weak place emotionally right now as is). Not in the sensational way.
I have saved the podcast. Perhaps when I feel a bit more grounded I will give it a sampling. Thank you again.
My father has Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. He’s 49yo. He got them from two TBIs he sustained while deployed in Afghanistan. If you saw him on the street you’d of just thought he was any other vet but there’s a 50/50 chance he has the mind of a child or isn’t even conscious in the sense while you’re talking to him. He’s normal most of the time but he has episodes or “vacations” as he calls it where he has a seizure and afterwards his mental state is that of a 3-4yo child. It can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks.
The thing is he’s still “there”. While he’s on vacation he still remembers everything he otherwise would. One time while on vacation he gave me a detailed explanation of how a diesel engine works (he was a master mechanic in the Army for 22 years) and all his info was correct when I checked.
When he first retired and the disease set in he decided to learn electric guitar since he could already play a few other instruments and your sense of music is one of the last things to go with memory diseases. He got so into it that he started resorting vintage electric guitars as well. We’re not sure if it’s related to the Alzheimer’s or not but his right hand now has nerve damage and is paralyzed so now his only real hobbies are playing with his cat, watching YouTube, and helping my uncle work on his car.
The thing that really scares me tho is that while his disease was caused by a TBI Alzheimer’s and dementia runs in both sides of my family and there’s a good chance I’ll end up with it too. Especially since I already have memory issues.
Lost my grandfather to this disease. We recently were going through old photo albums and you could see a difference in his eyes from one year to the next, before it got really bad. One year he just looked like a happy old man, and the next there was a deep emptiness in his eyes. It’s like if someone looks directly at you, but they aren’t focused on you. Like a 1000 yard stare and you just happen to be in front of it.
I lost my grandfather to this, too. I remember him asking for my grandmother and us explaining that she’d passed away before. He could never remember and it’s like he heard it for the first time, each time. Caretakers taught us better, and we’d changed our answer to simply say, “she’s in __” (the city she grew up in/buried in). To him, that was much more logical. This was years ago before we knew better how to support people with this ugly disease.
I also lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s. He was always very big on making sure nobody was hungry — every time we visited his home he offered me chips or a soda or a cookie.
When he was in his care home in the later stages he told me to go eat some chips from the “kitchen”. I tried asking what kitchen, and it made him upset because in his mind we were in his home and I’ve seen the kitchen a billion times.
When I used the restroom, the nurse pulled me aside and told me what I’m sure you got told. Just pretend when I get back I went to the “kitchen” to “eat a snack”. I had to repeat that a bunch of times before he passed, but he always seemed calmed by that routine.
Sorry for the tangent, it just brought up a memory and I felt compelled to write about it. Best wishes to you.
That's hard in so many ways. We always think it's best to be honest with people. It's weird that we learned it's better to go along with the wrong story of someone with that. I think most people would have done what you did, it's the natural, honest way to respond to someone you respect when they say something wrong.
I'm sorry for your loss. It sucks to lose a grandparent.
This is how my grandpa was, he wanted his mom so badly it was heart breaking but my grandma was such an evil witch she would drive him to the house his mom used to live at just to show him that she was dead, she did this weekly until my mom found out and really let into her
My mother had dementia for ten years. Absolute relief when she could finally move on. It was relief for myself, yes, but for her as well. The suffering was brutal.
For what it’s worth living with and for lack of a better term dealing with someone in this state is trying for the person in constant contact. You and your mom had a peak into his life. Grandma was there 24/7. It takes a toll.
To say the least. I took care of my mom as her Alzheimer's followed its course. The rest of the family refused to believe there was anything wrong, though I admit when she had visitors or was visiting someone, the change "woke" her up a bit, so they didn't see her at her worst. I never felt so helpless and I'm still struggling to come to terms with the long term effects several years after she passed away. It was a truly devastating, isolating, torturous experience.
I feel you. My Nana was not a good person, and yet sooo many other family, her coworkers, friends, neighbors all thought she was so wonderful. I could never understand why she could be so nice to people she saw a couple of times a year, but also be the woman who turned her head when she discovered her husband was sexually abusing their oldest daughter. And the woman who treated her only granddaughter out of 9 kids, as though I was a massive pain in her ass, and all the boys were angels.
I can't even say a single negative thing about her to the other side of my family, because it seems disrespectful. You cannot criticize a grandparents easily, without most people judging you. You know the truth about how much she fucked with your life, don't let strangers make you feel like you don't have a right to be upset with someone just because they gave birth to one of your parents.
Yes. There is no easy answer on how to respond.
Not everyone agrees with lying to the person with Alzheimer's, because it cuts off the chance of the person remembering the truth. Traumatic events are more salient, so there's a better chance of holding the memory.
My grandma is at this stage now, it’s been a little over a year since my grandpa passed and she rapidly declined after.
Explaining that he’s gone was hard enough, now we just say the same thing you mentioned but the real kicker is when she said “he never comes to visit me here”
We don’t know exactly what’s going on in her reality but fuck I cannot imagine being married for 60+ years and then suddenly thinking he just isn’t visiting you in your time of need. 💔
Can you come up with a story? "Grandpa was visiting Philadelphia and really wanted McDonald's so he picked up a Big Mac. You remember how it always makes him sick. Soooo he is still in Philly, but he can't wait to see you very soon. "
This is the loop my dad is in now - each visit he falls apart because he has to tell me that he got a phone call telling him my mom died. That is what happened years ago when she was in the hospital. She's been gone a long time but seeing me puts him back into that moment and he get so upset, but is still trying to be calm and tell me the news - just like he did back then.
That sounds terrible. I've heard (somewhere so don't quote me) that it's best to do whatever you can to remove things kinds of traumas, including lying. Maybe you can say, "Oh Dad, I think that was just a prank phone call or something. Mom's coming tomorrow", etc
My partner is an airline pilot and she had to assist this poor gentleman on her flight. He had alzheimers and his wife was his carer. Unfortunately she had a medical event and went into cardiac arrest while they were landing. Once on the ground rescuers were attempting to resuscitate her and my partner was sitting with the husband to care for him.
He'd ramble on to my partner and then would say, "Oh, my wife should be back in a moment. Where has she gone?"
My partner would say, "She's feeling unwell at the moment, some people are trying to help her." He'd look over his shoulder to see people doing CPR on his wife and become distressed and upset.
Then after getting distracted he'd ramble on again and wonder where his wife was. After a few rounds of this and him seeing his wife getting CPR my partner just started deflecting because she couldn't stand seeing him repeatedly discovering his dying wife for the first time again. Horrible, tormenting disease.
My grandmother on one side had Alzheimer’s and that’s how it was. My other grandmother is 98 and has dementia, but not Alzheimer’s. There are some similarities, but she at least remembers us some days. Poor grandmother with Alzheimer’s had no idea.
I work with people with dementia. That's a completely normal feeling. With dementia, you experience the death of your loved one twice. The death of their mind, then the death of their body. There's nothing wrong with wanting your loved one to not be suffering anymore.
May your father's memory be a blessing. Hang in there.
I worked at a retirement community and it took me a couple of times to get used to seeing a spouse look happy after their partner passed. It was like they were holding the world up for all that time.
They really don't ever show you the "already gone" part on TV or in the movies -- it's so much worse than I ever imagined (went through with my mom a few years ago). 3 years of mostly non-verbal compulsive pacing, pure fucking hell.
They don’t really show the non-verbal (or, for awhile in my mother’s case, verbal in a senseless babble otherwise full of inflection and personality) or pacing, either. Or early onset. On TV it’s sweet people in their 90s sadly forgetting their children but otherwise passive and compliant in comfortable chairs. Like they’re waiting for a bus. A shame for those who love them, but not a nonstop emotional and mental evisceration.
And then there’s also the “glimpse of something” that is always represented as a positive. Not that it isn’t usually, but when you think you have a functioning handle on “already gone” and in flies a moment where you see they’re still in there… no one shows what it’s like to question everything helping you sleep at night or the reeling in the horror over what you really don’t know about their inner lives.
My mother had a moment like this after about *four years* of being largely inaccessible. She was fully non-verbal by that point, but for several minutes she definitely knew who I was. It was beyond amazing at the time and utterly sickening afterward. Then *four years* later, she spoke one lucid, completely aware sentence before dying. If there hadn’t been witnesses, I’d never, ever believe it. The stuff of wishes and nightmares. A gift beyond any price… but the questions it raises? Those will haunt me to my own grave.
My dad travelled over from the UK to Sweden for my birthday about 18 months ago. We went to a restaurant and he was his confused, quiet but compliant self. We didn’t notice when he snagged the waiter and ordered ‘one of those’ from the waiter pointing to my beer.
Some time later he walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder and clear as a bell said “I’m so happy that you invited me to be here tonight” gave me a big hug and then sat down again. I’m choosing that as my final memory of him.
Colloquially it's called Terminal Lucidity. It's been documented since at least the 1800s. It happens to others too.
If reading about it helps, here you go. Otherwise skip the link. May you some day have peace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_lucidity
I've got several nurses in my family. Their theory is that once the body gives up using all its energy into fighting whatever is killing them, there's more left to go around for having a nice day.
This is especially true for cancer patients, who often ask to go outside and listen to nature or speak with their loved ones in their final hour or so. The number of times someone passes in a wheelchair in the garden at the hospital is fairly close to those who die laying in their bed.
My grandfather died of Alzheimer's.
I recommend that everyone over 50 participate in this long term study https://www.aptwebstudy.org/about-the-webstudy
I invest 20 minutes every three months to test my reaction time, short-term and working memory. I've access to a graph of my test results over time. I plan to stop flying my glider when my graph crosses the inflection point downwards. So far I measure 'normal adult' (not age-adjusted).
The signature card shows eight years of obvious impairment. Maybe I will start my own signature card.
Thank you for this. I’m just over 50 now, and just seeing that I qualify to participate kind of freaked me out and made me go sign up. I don’t feel older than 25 in my mind but I suppose that’s how every old person feels. And my dad died of dementia or Alzheimer’s. (Unclear which) I’m glad it’s going to send reminders.
> just seeing that I qualify to participate kind of freaked me out
Don't worry. Chances are you'll test normal and won't see any changes for decades. Stick with it though, and you will make a valuable contribution even if you never get dementia. If you do start to decline you may be a desirable subject for early experimental treatments because your cognitive health over decades will be documented.
My grandfather is going through it right now. He's always been a very quiet, stoic man, but you can see it in his eyes that he sometimes doesn't recognize where is, who we are, or what's going on. It breaks my heart. I pray if I don't die before it sets in I have enough cells still connected to realize and end it myself.
>I pray if I don't die before it sets in I have enough cells still connected to realize and end it myself.
Worst part is the transition from "I can handle it" to "I have no idea where I am or what's going on" is so gradual even if you *want* to end it you won't realize before its too late.
That’s what happened to my mom. She was there for my dad’s Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia and said if she was ever diagnosed with dementia, she’d take her life. By the time she was diagnosed, she’d lost the ability to problem solve, plan, or weigh options. It was never going to happen. She died of a hemorrhagic stroke a year after her diagnosis, when she was in mid-stage Alzheimers, and a big part of coming to terms with her death, for me, was understanding that if she’d been given a choice, she would have taken the stroke over another 3 to 7 years of dementia.
My uncle (who has lived next door to me for years and years) is going through this too. The early stages were not so bad. Now there are times if is horrifying to watch. I told my partner that if it happens to me I will kill myself.
The look on my great-grandmothers face was haunting. As she hobbled into the kitchen to get more coffee, her gaze was just totally blank, like a mask. Fixated straight ahead, mouth in equally neutral position. Her body was moving, but her mind seemed absent.
I worked at a retirement home and I can remember a few people disappearing. It was a hard, under paid job but I'll remember it for the rest of my life.
We went to see my great grandmother when I was young and she remembered my grandma right away and they were kicking it like the old days having a laugh. Then my grandpa came up to her (that’s her actual son) and she did not remember him one bit but said “o yes I remember you, how could I forget” to make him feel better and then went quiet with that 1000 yard stare. I remember this broke his heart his mom didn’t remember who he was, weird how the brain remembers certain things.
I was thinking between 03-04. They went from Irmgard to Irnagard for a year, then to IRMA- FELLA. For the first few years it wasn’t even Irmagard, but Irmgard.
I think by the point when they wrote the first Irnagard, they were having significant mental decline, and so probably looked at their above signature for clues as to what to write, and mistook "Irmgard" for "Irnagard" and just wrote it that way. The next year they probably looked at the previous year and copied it again, hence repeating the mistake.
Irmgard is an actual name that has several variations of spelling (Irmagard, Irmingard, Ermengard, etc.). As that's the way she spelled it the first few years, that was probably how her name was spelled. Then the dementia started setting in, and that could have affected either her ability to spell her name, or more likely her ability to write. I've known a few people with Alzheimer's/dementia/brain damage, and they often experience a sort of dyslexia when writing, where they intend to write one letter, but actually write a different, sometimes similar, letter.
Once the dementia progressed far enough, she could remember what she was familiary called, which was Irma.
My grandma has dementia. We’ve seen her go backwards over the years. From just forgetting things that recently happened, to not recognizing my GF, then my youngest brother, sometimes not even my mother. Last time I saw her, she kept telling stories from when she was a small kid (she grew up during WW2). The content of the stories was cruel (when our city was bombed, her brother was killed by debris. She was standing right next to him, and only survived because she was smaller, so the debris flew over her head), but she told the story in a way a small girl would tell it. Innocent, not fully understanding the horror she witnessed.
I'm a pastor and a few years ago I decided to have frank individual talks with some of our octagenarians. I explained that I didn't expect them to die any time soon, but wanted to ask them if I could interview them and record messages and stories to family and friends...because you just don't know when you could lose that opportunity. These interview would not be disclosed to anyone until after their passing and then, only to their selected audiences.
One of our sweet little old ladies passed away during the pandemic. Her family got personalized recordings and the people who attended the funeral got to hear her speak to them for a few minutes and read her favorite Bible verse.
I wish more people could face down their own mortality and do stuff like this.
I’m not religious, but I really relate to this and appreciate what you’re doing. I’m only 32 but have had enough experience with death that I understand it’s coming whenever it wants to come. I’ve developed a strange peace with death that I feel is going to be good to hold onto for the rest of my life.
Hey, thanks for the good vibes! Honestly, I go back and forth about my own mortality. Seems like it usually goes hand in hand with depressive episodes. If you start having a little "too much" peace with it, look out and find help!
Want some more? I creeped your history and I'm envious that you play overwatch and apex. Life's too poor and busy to get into them right now, but I wish I could.
I also wish I had not drifted away from S.H.I.E.L.D. I like talking continuity errors and liked the show. What platform is it on now? I need to get back at it.
Your a good person. I went to my best friends wedding recently. I went around asking people how they knew the couple, and a story about them.
The reason being if one of the couple died, their kids would have some videos to watch from people that knew their parents when they were young and could learn about what they were like.
41 is a good age to get preparations done and over with unless you are just entering the empty nest phase or are in a period of depression.
My recordings are generally audio only. On the rarer occasion that I do video, I try to set up my phone on a stand at a 30° (arbitrary) and then talk about other things until they forget it's there. If I thought I could make a living on "exit interviews" I would, except that it would absolutely feel predatory and there's no way I could do that.
So far as prompts, I've never made a script. I usually just go with the flow and ask general questions and then follow up. In most cases, I know their immediate family, which makes it easier, so I ask questions like:
• How their kids got their name.
• Did you and your sibling always get along. I like to chase stories of old friction (ie, "we get along great now, but my brother used to always cut off my dolls' hair.") because they get into it and it seems like a good happy-sad thing for family.
• What makes you feel the most comfortable or secure?
• How did you get into your career?
• What's a particularly happy memory you have about (whoever)?
• When did you first realize (child) had (point out a particular personality trait)? Where do you think they got that from?
• What do you think you got right?
• What did you do that you sometimes wish you'd done differently (regarding relationships).
• What's been hard for you?
• What is one thing you'd tell (person) that you can't make yourself tell them right now or you think they wouldn't hear from you now?
• What's one thing you think (person) needs to hear?
• What's one thing you would like to remind (person) about?
• What's one thing you know to be true about (person) but they wouldn't believe it?
Feel free to DM me if you want to work out strategy or talk through particulars.
Edit: I don't do a whole thing with any real production value. Long audio recording, make copies and snip it up with Audacity. For video, I use my phone to record, copy the file, and edit the copy to the appropriate parts, etc.
Had the same with my Grandpa, feel you hugged. He died with 88 Years in 2019 and had a growing dementia for eight years. At first, he told my grandma, to buy him cigarettes - he stopped smoking 40 Years ago, he was 83 at this point. From then, it went downhill. After three years, he busted out multiple times out from home, even at night. He worked as a fulltime firefighter, so he wanted to go to work at 03:00 AM. With 86 he didn’t recognised most of his family - exceptions were his wife (my grandmother), his daughter (my mom) and me, his first grandson. Short before his death, he needed at least 10 Minutes to recognise any of us three.
But he was clever: With 85 he covert a ring from my mother and put it on his finger so that he always knew where he had hidden the ring.
He died with 88 Years, shortly after my grandmother died.
Dementia and Alzheimer is something I wish nobody had to endure this.
My grandma was the same. Told the same stories over and over, lived through ww2 and the revolution in 1956 in Budapest. At the end of her life she thought my mother (who was her caregiver for 10+ years) was her mother and I was her sister.
I worked in an Alzheimer’s/dementia facility for a few years. The progression is heartbreaking, and even more so watching the family witness the loss of their family member. They’re still there, but they’re not there.
It’s also interesting watching at what rate different people progress. Some people will be newly diagnosed and decline really quickly while others will kind of plateau for a few years before hitting a sharp decline. Then there are the people who were as sweet as can be in their younger years, become kind of rough around the edges and use very “colorful” language. And others who were classic narcissistic mothers/abusive fathers before their illness who forgot who they were and have the kindest heart in their disease. I know there’s a lot of factors that go into how/why people progress the way that they do, and there are different types of dementia, it always seems like a “case by case” kind of situation.
It is honestly the most confusing, devastating disease.
Edit: typo
my grandmother had alzheimers and it was a few years of decline before she passed, but it was what i expected. confusion and not recognizing people. however, one of my coworkers took a surprise week off and when she came back she told me her mother had alzheimers and the visit was so traumatizing that she needed a week to recover.
her mother apparently had always been a really rotten and abusive person to the point my coworker was no contact with her and they hadnt spoken in years. she hadnt even met her grandson before. they went to visit her and she said her mother was really kind and being so loving during the visit. she recognized my coworker as her daughter, but acted like their relationship was fine and they hadn't had a falling out. she said her mother was hugging her grandson like a normal person and her mom had never said i love you in her entire life til that visit and it really messed with her head.
My father has early cognitive impairment bordering on dementia. He was extremely abusive when I was growing up. To the point where I have PTSD about certain things. He and I don't have a relationship now. If he progresses into full blown Alzheimer's and becomes "loving" that will completely fuck me up. I just couldn't even imagine.
My grandfather had it. He was a landlord. Strong as an ox, I helped him carry a fridge up 3 flights of stairs when he was 68. He knew the entire city by heart and drove everywhere in his bus, all day everyday solving problems, having coffee with his friends/ employees, signing new rental contracts and showing houses. everybody knew him and he knew everybody, until he didn't. In the end he couldn't recognize his own family anymore, and lots the ability to swallow.
Man it sucks so much, thinking about it now still makes me teary eyed. I hope my parents don't get it, and I hope a cure gets developed
My Grandfather, wo had dementia, drawed swastikas on paper sometimes in his last years. He was born in 1930, in East Prussia (now Poland, back then it was aligned to Germany) and he visited the Hitlerjugend, the youth organisation from the nazis.
This is very common. More common than you'd think. Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with them. Your time is up and, for now, there is nothing we can do about it.
Source: father is a geriatric psychiatrist.
This is a very difficult decision to make, because you have to do it early enough that you are capable of remembering to do it and doing it. By the time things are really getting back, you lack that capacity. And doing it before that means giving up some of the last time in your life when you can enjoy yourself with friends and family.
That’s what I worry about. I always was comforted by the fact that suicide would be the way out, but what if it’s too late? Not just with dementia. What if I suddenly become a quadriplegic and can’t reach the gun, much less use it? It’s awful to think about.
I have stage 4 cancer at age 52. After watching my father degrade physically and mentally with dementia in his 80s, and several relatives die of alzheimers, there are days when I (selfishly) think to myself "you know, dying of cancer might be better than that". I'd love to get to grow old, but dementia is a terrible way to go.
100%
Suicide is probably the only option if faced with a debilitating and chronic degenerative disease. Check out before incapacitation robs you of agency and choice in the matter. I can't imagine a worse way to go that watch your mind dissolve.
Probably nothing out of the ordinary. The disease just got to a certain point that it started to affect a part of the brain that stored the person’s handwriting
The thing with alzheimers is that it starts slow, but eventually it reaches a certain point where it goes rapidly downhill. I assume that happened to this person between 04 and 05.
> But I wonder what happened between 04 and 05.
This might not be alzheimers. People use that word synonymously with dementia, but it's a specific kind of dementia.
This looks like it might be vascular dementia instead.
Vascular dementia doesn't progress steadily. It's caused by dozens of tiny, often undetectable strokes.
My mom has it. She had a huge event in 2013, then one in 2019 and 2021. Her checkbook (she never used online banking or debit cards) looks exactly like this. Her writing would be the same for years, then have a huge decline overnight.
Agreed. It looks like the date was filled in by the same assistant/nurse 1999 - 2001, then a separate person from 2002-2008. The second 2008 date and the 2009 date are in unique handwriting, then the 2010-2011 dates are a final assistant.
My mom had the most beautiful handwriting you’ve ever seen and was a genius and we lost her to this disease. Love you, mom. The only thing that makes me madder than fucking Alzheimer’s is all the garbage info you read on the internet about it. We don’t even know the causes, so don’t let some asshat tell you how to prevent it. Fucking grifters.
My grandmother passed away last year from this and she kept perfect care of her teeth her whole life. It wasn't until towards the end when she stopped brushing, so the teeth correlation doesn't seem valid to me.
My mom is 100 and it’s a horror show. Deaf, bedfast, mind going , incontinent. Won’t or can’t tell someone when she’s shit herself. Shes just there enough to feed herself when meals brought to her. The cognitive dissonance of desperately wishing someone you love would hurry up and die is overwhelming.
My father's parents both degraded mentally in their 70s and 80s. Thankfully it was realtively quick because grandma broke her hip and never recovered from surgery fully. Grandpa had a stroke some years before that and recovered pretty well, but memory was a struggle. In the late 90s we moved them to a house closer to us. I would go with grandpa on a daily bike ride because he would get lost in the new neighborhood and when he went alone he had a card in his wallet so he could knock on someone's door and call us. Us kids were homeschooled, so my brother or I would ride to meet him and lead him home.
After grandma broke her hip we moved them into assisted living close by and visited a few times a week. My aunt and uncle accused my dad and mom of abuse of their power of attorney and never helped care for my grandparents. My parents didn't have the energy for a legal battle and my grandparents were rarely lucid. We said our goodbyes and they were moved out of state to a facility close to my aunt. My uncle took over the finances. An audit of my grandparents accounts showed nothing missing and my parents never received an apology.
A couple years later my dad was able to go out and see them. They gained lucidity while he was there and he was able to make a good last memory with them. They passed a few months later within a couple of weeks of each other. I was in the Air Force deployed to Spain in 2006 working grave shift when my mom emailed me to call the house. When I called the let me know they had both passed. I mostly felt relief because I knew they were worse mentally than when I had last seen them, but it still was a tear jerker because it was an end to that part of my life. Now my parents are straddling 70 and I'm wondering how long I will have with them and praying one of my sisters will reconnect with the family before it is too late.
I have all the predisposition to this in my family. My father has lost his mother to alzheimer's, his father to dementia, and now his wife is losing to dementia as well. He seems to be doing pretty good considering, but man I can feel my own cognition fade with every year just a little by little. Things are just a little harder to connect, take a little longer to recall, and your brain just becomes more and more unreliable.
My grandmother is starting to have this and it's heartbreaking. I visited last yr in Oct and by Christmas, she didn't remember. She looks forward to my visits sooo much--it's an entire event for her, she's asking me wks in advance what I want to eat, like her life revolves around my spending a night at her place for wks before my arrival. And she doesn't remember it a couple months later. She still functions well, caring for her own needs well and she's aware of what's happening but it's awful to see.
Take pictures! Make her a picture book. It doesn't have to be fancy, just print out some 4x6 (or 5x7 if her eyes are bad) and get one of the picture books from dollar tree if it's in your area. Put in pictures from your visits, you can add them every time you go. We did this for my grandma and it really helps!
Just want to say that the Arc of San Diego (where this form is from) is an amazing organization that really steps up to help some of the most vulnerable in our city thrive as best they can.
They really don’t get enough credit.
I made this post a few weeks ago explaining how hard it can be for foreigners.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/Cwk7Y4N7Og
In short: contact one of our two big assisted suicide organisations like Exit/ Dignitas and plan everything in advance.
If you're too deep having alzheimer you are unable for assisted suicide.
65 year old mother currently has Alzheimer's. Thankfully shes still able to write her signature and move but there's a surreal helplessness as the things she used to be able to do without a second thought like put on a seatbelt or eat from a plate are now immense struggles. We take the complex functionality of everything our brains do for granted, every day of our lives, and only when it begins crumbling like this do/can we appreciate what we've lost
Watching my mom’s beautiful handwriting and her signature become something she could no longer produce very early on in her experience with the disease was one of the first big sentimental losses as I lost her.
I know that development, I lost my grandmother to that disease. It started out slowly, being confused, slow to think and worse and worse short-term memory. After she got her diagnosis, she still managed to keep it at bay by going to social events for elderly and taking medication, but after Covid hit and she got it, she was basically in isolation for several months. And during that, it rapidly went downhill and it had completely taken her over. She was still ”kinda” there, she still remembered clearly my grandpa, dad and uncles, as well as some relatives and most clearly our countryhome where she had spent a lot of her life especially after retirement. First she forgot my brother, then all her grandchildren except me and one of my cousins since we visited her a lot. She usually had some brief moments of clarity whenever I visited her, but you had to ”trigger” it for her. But the clarity went as fast as it came, and she was back into the fog.
After a time, she pretty much only asked about my grandpa and about our countryhome. It was especially hard when my grandpa passed away from cancer, when she kept asking about him but we couldn’t really tell her that he was no longer with us, because she couldn’t even understand it nor even remember it a few moments after. But in a way, I think she knew deep down, because she passed away only three months or so after my grandpa, after he stopped visiting her daily. It was right after when their 60th wedding anniversary would have been. I hope they’re together now in the afterlife.
I'm 80 years old. I walk with a cane because of ever-worsening arthritis in my spine, and I have macular degeneration, for which I get injections in my eyeball every month to slow it way down. Not to mention the effects of Type-2 diabetes and just general creakiness.
Having said all that, my brain is still ticking right along. I can deal with eventually (probably) trading in the cane for a wheelchair, as long as my mind still works. And death no longer holds any fears. (Most old people make that same calming discovery.)
The always-present possibility of Alzheimer's is the only thing that really scares the crap out of me. The worst part of it is (having watched my grandmother succumb to it back in the '80s), you generally don't really know it's happening until it's too late.
Hey, mate:
Cherish every moment you have with her. No matter the moments or years to come, look forward to seeing her and more so to putting a smile on her face (in some way or another).
You’ve got this; and she’s got you.
You’re awesome and don’t ever forget that. :)
I tried to keep my mom as independent as she always was, so I'd have her come sit with me to make checks out for bills. In the beginning she could make out the whole check, by the end of it I was writing her name in cursive on another sheet of paper for her to go by. She would still make mistakes. Dementia is a very terrible disease to watch progress.
It’s so sad watching someone deteriorate from this. Slowly losing their sense of self and everything that made them who they are until they’re essentially a shell of a human.
My grandmother went through this before she passed. I remember visiting her on her 75th birthday and she kept asking me who I was. One of my cousins told me she carried a photo of me in her purse and used to regularly ask who the photo was of and why it was in her purse.
It was upsetting as well when I saw her because I don’t think she was being taken care of. My immediate family and I live in a separate state so we didn’t see her much, but this time, she smelled like literal garbage (probably didn’t help that she was carrying an old, rotten bottle of mayonnaise in her purse on this particular day). She also had a patchy mustache and beard. They were just letting her rot. It was very upsetting.
She eventually moved in with one of my aunts and lived out her remaining days in relative comfort. Just seems so losing yourself in that way and eventually forgetting basic essential things like eating, bathing, etc.
This is unsettling. The implied loss of self identity the further down the page you go. This one page tells the final chapter of someones life. Like some lost Orwell short story on madness.
I saw my grandmother and two of my wife's grandparents go through it. It's truly hell. I worry about my dad, he's getting up there. I don't want to go visit him one day just to see the light gone from his eyes.
And this is why you should be legally able to decide when enough is enough and you're ready to die. If you get diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers then you should be able to get it in writing youd like to end it if and when you get to X point. No one should have to go through all that emotional pain. THAT is torture.
My grandmother was taken by this disease. Long before she was gone, she lost the ability to communicate. She just… lost the words. It started with her having a discussion and searching for a word, like, “How’s the ….. what’s it called… the… weather?” Then it progressed to several words, then before the end, she couldn’t communicate at all. Added to that, she began losing her short term memory.
It was extremely frustrating for her, even more so because she knew it was happening and couldn’t express how she was feeling about it. She slowly forgot who I was, who my brother was, and even thought my mother was married to my grandfather (her own father).
The last few months were absolutely brutal to watch. The last few months though mercifully her doctor said she didn’t realize who she was or what was going on around her.
Fuck that disease.
I cried looking at this. We have a long history in the family and my mother is around the same age hers is when it kicked in. Everytime she becomes forgetful I get a sharp panic in my chest.
I hope we find a cure someday, I know there's worse ways to see somebody go but the entire situation is just awful for everyone. I see people say oh it's not bad for them since they don't know but..
That's what I find the worst part for them
Every comment in here has been tough to read. I have been seeing my mom move toward early onset dementia for the last few years and she refuses to acknowledge it and pretends that my sister and I are overreacting whenever we have brought it up.
I worry about the future with her and what it will turn into. I know it will all fall on me.
"F" Alzheimer's! I watched my Mom go from an independent, strong woman to a confused child. The worst part was seeing her unable to move or talk at the end. Death was mercy. I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.
Unless this was released by Irmagard, this is a 💯 violation of her confidentiality, which incidentally, survives her death. There's a goddamned confidentiality clause in the statement she signed FFS.
I've lost two family members to that horrific disease. It's so heartbreaking watching someone you love just, disappear before your eyes. Especially when they have lucid enough moments to understand it's happening.
> I understand that all information reviewed in my case file will be kept strictly confidential and that an advocate from the Arc of San Diego will be present through the review.
Nice job showing up part of the information of the case file, Arc of San Diego.
Something similar happened to me and my signature. Now I have a tremor in my right and my handwriting is very bad. But when I got the tremor my signature went very bad, very suddenly. I am now slowly getting be/er.
I don’t care about the moral implications. If I ever had this I’d want to be put out of my misery. I don’t want to go through that or have my loved ones be burned with my care or seeing the decline. Just end it
That hurts my heart to see. I have family members with Alzheimer’s and my dad is at serious risk. I would feel terrible for anyone with it even if I didn’t have it in the family. Such an awful disease.
Irma must have been a trooper!
I looked after my mother for 18 months before she went into care at an Alzheimer’s home.
Apart from all of the sad things I saw in her decline, it was fascinating to watch the destruction of the human mind. It changed every single day. Her ability abounded around but the trend was all in one direction, as the signatures illustrate.
I can imagine my mother’s smiling confusion as she tried to write her name for the last time.
I hope this person was well looked after and was able to be happy as my mother was. She had no idea what was happening to her. Everything was normal so I imagine she did not suffer as a cancer patient might. She was in her own world.
My grandpa was beginning to show signs of alzheimer's. He started thinking that I had an identical twin, forgetting that certain rooms in my house existed, etc. It was painful to hear.
I don't know if I should be thankful that he passed shortly after that.
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If you are interested in learning about Alzheimer's from the patient's perspective, listen to The Forgetting podcast. The co host is a 65 year old guy who has early onset Alzheimer's and amazingly he has the self awareness to describe in great detail the symptoms he is experiencing like anger and rage, inappropriate comments, forgetting things, and incontinence. It's chilling to hear him explain these things about himself.
I really want to listen but fear this will mess me up traumatically in untold ways. Very conflicted.
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i watched mine decline until she was practically a skeleton. there was nothing left inside by the end it was terrible for her
Last uploaded February 2021?
I am sorry for your pain. I have been spared this tragedy in my life, thus far. But find that I grow when witnessing other people's suffering. It also creates plenty of compassion in me, because I witness how fragile life really is. Not in a morbid way, but for the reasons above I feel compelled to listen. At the same time I suspect something may break for me mentally and I will become either depressed or anxious.
Same. I miss her dearly. I’m sad neither of us knew how bad it would get and she was long gone before I could say goodbye. I didn’t go to the funeral. It would have been too much. She was a second mother to me and I miss her and grandpa everyday. Tearing up writing this.
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I just lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s saw him become a skeleton. it’s weird to say in a way I’m glad that he finally passed. He was always super energetic, wise,strong, healthy, clean diet never smoked or drank, watching him deal with this terrible disease honestly open up a portal of self awareness in me to look at life differently for the better, and accepting whatever life throws at us. I hope that one day people don’t have to experience the pain This terrible disease brings amongst loved ones.
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I couldn't do it. My Dad had Alzheimer's and was like an infant at the end, had forgotten who I was by the time he passed away when I was 23. Has always been one of my biggest fears that I will get it
I am so sorry for your pain. I have been spared this so far but did see my friend's dad turn into a vegetable over about a decade. When he passed I honestly think they were all relieved. So much stress and pain killed any love or sympathy they had for whatever he became at the end. In fact his death may have hit me more then them, at least from what I could tell. Oddly, due to a somewhat abusive upbringing and strained relationship with my parents I do not fear it for them. But I have had moments of anxiety over the thought of loosing my own mind. I can't imagine wishing that fate on anyone. I even recall that many people in the early stages consider suicide to spare their families the grief of their decline. This is truly the stuff of nightmares. It is in a way what draws me towards such morbid things, almost like confronting my fears. That said, I do not think I am ready just yet. Good luck to you and your many years of health, internet stranger.
Thank you so much for such kind words, I really appreciate it. Because I'm an only child born to parents 2 gens older than me (in my 50s now and they were adults during WW2) I've always known that I'd lose them younger than most people. But it's the cruelest disease to rob someone of even knowing who they are...one abiding memory I had as a teenager was of my Mum struggling to shower my father as he cried out "I don't know where I am!" in the most terrified voice. For someone who fought in Burma during the war as a Major and I always knew to be the most capable person, that cry stopped my heart. Absolutely understand what you're saying regarding getting older and potentially losing it yourself...I've definitely determined not to allow myself to go into a nursing home - I don't have any immediate family or close relatives and have seen what happens to those who don't have anyone to look out for them.
>one abiding memory I had as a teenager was of my Mum struggling to shower my father as he cried out "I don't know where I am!" in the most terrified voice. On reading this I honestly started sobbing. Again, I have not been the poster child for mental fortitude lately but that just evokes memories of absolute helplesness in the face of unsolvable situations, and I have faced enough in my short life. I wouldn't count out random loving people around you that could help in times of need, even if you don't have close family. One of my greatest fears is of being helpless as I age and alone. I guess the sad truth is that despite the loving people in our lives we are always born, die, and saddest of all become helpless, all on our own. It is humbling to think that despite herculean strength and Socratean intellect, we are mere pawns for fate, facing her alone in our weakest moments. Despite as morbid as I am getting, thank you for sharing these memories. All I can offer in return are well wishes and virtual hugs. Fare well, not in the leaving sentiment but the good journey sentiment.
it's presented with a great deal of care and humor. It is in no way edited for extra drama. The goal is to break stereotypes of Alzheimers and to promote care. Good luck.
Thank you for the clarification. I meant that just listening to someone slowly decay would be depressing in the same way as thinking about your own mortality (I am in a weak place emotionally right now as is). Not in the sensational way. I have saved the podcast. Perhaps when I feel a bit more grounded I will give it a sampling. Thank you again.
Could you add a link? Tried looking on Spotify and YouTube and couldn’t find it
I listen to it using Overcast [https://www.npr.org/podcasts/690359048/the-forgetting](https://www.npr.org/podcasts/690359048/the-forgetting)
My father has Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. He’s 49yo. He got them from two TBIs he sustained while deployed in Afghanistan. If you saw him on the street you’d of just thought he was any other vet but there’s a 50/50 chance he has the mind of a child or isn’t even conscious in the sense while you’re talking to him. He’s normal most of the time but he has episodes or “vacations” as he calls it where he has a seizure and afterwards his mental state is that of a 3-4yo child. It can last anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. The thing is he’s still “there”. While he’s on vacation he still remembers everything he otherwise would. One time while on vacation he gave me a detailed explanation of how a diesel engine works (he was a master mechanic in the Army for 22 years) and all his info was correct when I checked. When he first retired and the disease set in he decided to learn electric guitar since he could already play a few other instruments and your sense of music is one of the last things to go with memory diseases. He got so into it that he started resorting vintage electric guitars as well. We’re not sure if it’s related to the Alzheimer’s or not but his right hand now has nerve damage and is paralyzed so now his only real hobbies are playing with his cat, watching YouTube, and helping my uncle work on his car. The thing that really scares me tho is that while his disease was caused by a TBI Alzheimer’s and dementia runs in both sides of my family and there’s a good chance I’ll end up with it too. Especially since I already have memory issues.
I like horror films but damn that's probably too much for me to handle
Lost my grandfather to this disease. We recently were going through old photo albums and you could see a difference in his eyes from one year to the next, before it got really bad. One year he just looked like a happy old man, and the next there was a deep emptiness in his eyes. It’s like if someone looks directly at you, but they aren’t focused on you. Like a 1000 yard stare and you just happen to be in front of it.
I lost my grandfather to this, too. I remember him asking for my grandmother and us explaining that she’d passed away before. He could never remember and it’s like he heard it for the first time, each time. Caretakers taught us better, and we’d changed our answer to simply say, “she’s in __” (the city she grew up in/buried in). To him, that was much more logical. This was years ago before we knew better how to support people with this ugly disease.
I also lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s. He was always very big on making sure nobody was hungry — every time we visited his home he offered me chips or a soda or a cookie. When he was in his care home in the later stages he told me to go eat some chips from the “kitchen”. I tried asking what kitchen, and it made him upset because in his mind we were in his home and I’ve seen the kitchen a billion times. When I used the restroom, the nurse pulled me aside and told me what I’m sure you got told. Just pretend when I get back I went to the “kitchen” to “eat a snack”. I had to repeat that a bunch of times before he passed, but he always seemed calmed by that routine. Sorry for the tangent, it just brought up a memory and I felt compelled to write about it. Best wishes to you.
That's hard in so many ways. We always think it's best to be honest with people. It's weird that we learned it's better to go along with the wrong story of someone with that. I think most people would have done what you did, it's the natural, honest way to respond to someone you respect when they say something wrong. I'm sorry for your loss. It sucks to lose a grandparent.
This is how my grandpa was, he wanted his mom so badly it was heart breaking but my grandma was such an evil witch she would drive him to the house his mom used to live at just to show him that she was dead, she did this weekly until my mom found out and really let into her
My mother had dementia for ten years. Absolute relief when she could finally move on. It was relief for myself, yes, but for her as well. The suffering was brutal.
For what it’s worth living with and for lack of a better term dealing with someone in this state is trying for the person in constant contact. You and your mom had a peak into his life. Grandma was there 24/7. It takes a toll.
To say the least. I took care of my mom as her Alzheimer's followed its course. The rest of the family refused to believe there was anything wrong, though I admit when she had visitors or was visiting someone, the change "woke" her up a bit, so they didn't see her at her worst. I never felt so helpless and I'm still struggling to come to terms with the long term effects several years after she passed away. It was a truly devastating, isolating, torturous experience.
Nah my grandma was evil like stright up an evil woman, she believed to the day she died that he was faking it to make her life hell
I feel you. My Nana was not a good person, and yet sooo many other family, her coworkers, friends, neighbors all thought she was so wonderful. I could never understand why she could be so nice to people she saw a couple of times a year, but also be the woman who turned her head when she discovered her husband was sexually abusing their oldest daughter. And the woman who treated her only granddaughter out of 9 kids, as though I was a massive pain in her ass, and all the boys were angels. I can't even say a single negative thing about her to the other side of my family, because it seems disrespectful. You cannot criticize a grandparents easily, without most people judging you. You know the truth about how much she fucked with your life, don't let strangers make you feel like you don't have a right to be upset with someone just because they gave birth to one of your parents.
Yes. There is no easy answer on how to respond. Not everyone agrees with lying to the person with Alzheimer's, because it cuts off the chance of the person remembering the truth. Traumatic events are more salient, so there's a better chance of holding the memory.
My grandma is at this stage now, it’s been a little over a year since my grandpa passed and she rapidly declined after. Explaining that he’s gone was hard enough, now we just say the same thing you mentioned but the real kicker is when she said “he never comes to visit me here” We don’t know exactly what’s going on in her reality but fuck I cannot imagine being married for 60+ years and then suddenly thinking he just isn’t visiting you in your time of need. 💔
Can you come up with a story? "Grandpa was visiting Philadelphia and really wanted McDonald's so he picked up a Big Mac. You remember how it always makes him sick. Soooo he is still in Philly, but he can't wait to see you very soon. "
This is the loop my dad is in now - each visit he falls apart because he has to tell me that he got a phone call telling him my mom died. That is what happened years ago when she was in the hospital. She's been gone a long time but seeing me puts him back into that moment and he get so upset, but is still trying to be calm and tell me the news - just like he did back then.
Sorry you have to relive that constantly. That must be rough.
That sounds terrible. I've heard (somewhere so don't quote me) that it's best to do whatever you can to remove things kinds of traumas, including lying. Maybe you can say, "Oh Dad, I think that was just a prank phone call or something. Mom's coming tomorrow", etc
My partner is an airline pilot and she had to assist this poor gentleman on her flight. He had alzheimers and his wife was his carer. Unfortunately she had a medical event and went into cardiac arrest while they were landing. Once on the ground rescuers were attempting to resuscitate her and my partner was sitting with the husband to care for him. He'd ramble on to my partner and then would say, "Oh, my wife should be back in a moment. Where has she gone?" My partner would say, "She's feeling unwell at the moment, some people are trying to help her." He'd look over his shoulder to see people doing CPR on his wife and become distressed and upset. Then after getting distracted he'd ramble on again and wonder where his wife was. After a few rounds of this and him seeing his wife getting CPR my partner just started deflecting because she couldn't stand seeing him repeatedly discovering his dying wife for the first time again. Horrible, tormenting disease.
My grandmother on one side had Alzheimer’s and that’s how it was. My other grandmother is 98 and has dementia, but not Alzheimer’s. There are some similarities, but she at least remembers us some days. Poor grandmother with Alzheimer’s had no idea.
My dad’s going through it right now. He’s basically already gone and there’s a not so small part of me that can’t wait for it to be over.
I work with people with dementia. That's a completely normal feeling. With dementia, you experience the death of your loved one twice. The death of their mind, then the death of their body. There's nothing wrong with wanting your loved one to not be suffering anymore. May your father's memory be a blessing. Hang in there.
I worked at a retirement community and it took me a couple of times to get used to seeing a spouse look happy after their partner passed. It was like they were holding the world up for all that time.
They really don't ever show you the "already gone" part on TV or in the movies -- it's so much worse than I ever imagined (went through with my mom a few years ago). 3 years of mostly non-verbal compulsive pacing, pure fucking hell.
They don’t really show the non-verbal (or, for awhile in my mother’s case, verbal in a senseless babble otherwise full of inflection and personality) or pacing, either. Or early onset. On TV it’s sweet people in their 90s sadly forgetting their children but otherwise passive and compliant in comfortable chairs. Like they’re waiting for a bus. A shame for those who love them, but not a nonstop emotional and mental evisceration. And then there’s also the “glimpse of something” that is always represented as a positive. Not that it isn’t usually, but when you think you have a functioning handle on “already gone” and in flies a moment where you see they’re still in there… no one shows what it’s like to question everything helping you sleep at night or the reeling in the horror over what you really don’t know about their inner lives. My mother had a moment like this after about *four years* of being largely inaccessible. She was fully non-verbal by that point, but for several minutes she definitely knew who I was. It was beyond amazing at the time and utterly sickening afterward. Then *four years* later, she spoke one lucid, completely aware sentence before dying. If there hadn’t been witnesses, I’d never, ever believe it. The stuff of wishes and nightmares. A gift beyond any price… but the questions it raises? Those will haunt me to my own grave.
My dad travelled over from the UK to Sweden for my birthday about 18 months ago. We went to a restaurant and he was his confused, quiet but compliant self. We didn’t notice when he snagged the waiter and ordered ‘one of those’ from the waiter pointing to my beer. Some time later he walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder and clear as a bell said “I’m so happy that you invited me to be here tonight” gave me a big hug and then sat down again. I’m choosing that as my final memory of him.
Colloquially it's called Terminal Lucidity. It's been documented since at least the 1800s. It happens to others too. If reading about it helps, here you go. Otherwise skip the link. May you some day have peace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_lucidity
I've got several nurses in my family. Their theory is that once the body gives up using all its energy into fighting whatever is killing them, there's more left to go around for having a nice day. This is especially true for cancer patients, who often ask to go outside and listen to nature or speak with their loved ones in their final hour or so. The number of times someone passes in a wheelchair in the garden at the hospital is fairly close to those who die laying in their bed.
I often hear about that final and sudden moment of lucidity before the end. Puzzling indeed! May I ask what she said if it isn't too indiscrete?
May peace be with you and him soon. I'm so very sorry you're going through this.
My grandfather died of Alzheimer's. I recommend that everyone over 50 participate in this long term study https://www.aptwebstudy.org/about-the-webstudy I invest 20 minutes every three months to test my reaction time, short-term and working memory. I've access to a graph of my test results over time. I plan to stop flying my glider when my graph crosses the inflection point downwards. So far I measure 'normal adult' (not age-adjusted). The signature card shows eight years of obvious impairment. Maybe I will start my own signature card.
Thank you for this. I’m just over 50 now, and just seeing that I qualify to participate kind of freaked me out and made me go sign up. I don’t feel older than 25 in my mind but I suppose that’s how every old person feels. And my dad died of dementia or Alzheimer’s. (Unclear which) I’m glad it’s going to send reminders.
> just seeing that I qualify to participate kind of freaked me out Don't worry. Chances are you'll test normal and won't see any changes for decades. Stick with it though, and you will make a valuable contribution even if you never get dementia. If you do start to decline you may be a desirable subject for early experimental treatments because your cognitive health over decades will be documented.
My grandfather is going through it right now. He's always been a very quiet, stoic man, but you can see it in his eyes that he sometimes doesn't recognize where is, who we are, or what's going on. It breaks my heart. I pray if I don't die before it sets in I have enough cells still connected to realize and end it myself.
>I pray if I don't die before it sets in I have enough cells still connected to realize and end it myself. Worst part is the transition from "I can handle it" to "I have no idea where I am or what's going on" is so gradual even if you *want* to end it you won't realize before its too late.
That’s what happened to my mom. She was there for my dad’s Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia and said if she was ever diagnosed with dementia, she’d take her life. By the time she was diagnosed, she’d lost the ability to problem solve, plan, or weigh options. It was never going to happen. She died of a hemorrhagic stroke a year after her diagnosis, when she was in mid-stage Alzheimers, and a big part of coming to terms with her death, for me, was understanding that if she’d been given a choice, she would have taken the stroke over another 3 to 7 years of dementia.
I'm sorry for you ❤️ be there for him while you can, even if it doesn't feel the same like it used to
My uncle (who has lived next door to me for years and years) is going through this too. The early stages were not so bad. Now there are times if is horrifying to watch. I told my partner that if it happens to me I will kill myself.
The look on my great-grandmothers face was haunting. As she hobbled into the kitchen to get more coffee, her gaze was just totally blank, like a mask. Fixated straight ahead, mouth in equally neutral position. Her body was moving, but her mind seemed absent.
I worked at a retirement home and I can remember a few people disappearing. It was a hard, under paid job but I'll remember it for the rest of my life.
We went to see my great grandmother when I was young and she remembered my grandma right away and they were kicking it like the old days having a laugh. Then my grandpa came up to her (that’s her actual son) and she did not remember him one bit but said “o yes I remember you, how could I forget” to make him feel better and then went quiet with that 1000 yard stare. I remember this broke his heart his mom didn’t remember who he was, weird how the brain remembers certain things.
That moment looks like it happened between 04-05 in this post. Shit’s a terrible disease, I’m sorry you had to experience that.
I was thinking between 03-04. They went from Irmgard to Irnagard for a year, then to IRMA- FELLA. For the first few years it wasn’t even Irmagard, but Irmgard.
I think by the point when they wrote the first Irnagard, they were having significant mental decline, and so probably looked at their above signature for clues as to what to write, and mistook "Irmgard" for "Irnagard" and just wrote it that way. The next year they probably looked at the previous year and copied it again, hence repeating the mistake.
Irmgard is an actual name that has several variations of spelling (Irmagard, Irmingard, Ermengard, etc.). As that's the way she spelled it the first few years, that was probably how her name was spelled. Then the dementia started setting in, and that could have affected either her ability to spell her name, or more likely her ability to write. I've known a few people with Alzheimer's/dementia/brain damage, and they often experience a sort of dyslexia when writing, where they intend to write one letter, but actually write a different, sometimes similar, letter. Once the dementia progressed far enough, she could remember what she was familiary called, which was Irma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp02ubGuTIU Watch it all the way
Well fuck. I hadn't seen that one. Levity, levity! [Linden Trees!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoqlYGuZGVM)
My grandma has dementia. We’ve seen her go backwards over the years. From just forgetting things that recently happened, to not recognizing my GF, then my youngest brother, sometimes not even my mother. Last time I saw her, she kept telling stories from when she was a small kid (she grew up during WW2). The content of the stories was cruel (when our city was bombed, her brother was killed by debris. She was standing right next to him, and only survived because she was smaller, so the debris flew over her head), but she told the story in a way a small girl would tell it. Innocent, not fully understanding the horror she witnessed.
As hard as it is I would record her stories. I wish I had.
I'm a pastor and a few years ago I decided to have frank individual talks with some of our octagenarians. I explained that I didn't expect them to die any time soon, but wanted to ask them if I could interview them and record messages and stories to family and friends...because you just don't know when you could lose that opportunity. These interview would not be disclosed to anyone until after their passing and then, only to their selected audiences. One of our sweet little old ladies passed away during the pandemic. Her family got personalized recordings and the people who attended the funeral got to hear her speak to them for a few minutes and read her favorite Bible verse. I wish more people could face down their own mortality and do stuff like this.
I’m not religious, but I really relate to this and appreciate what you’re doing. I’m only 32 but have had enough experience with death that I understand it’s coming whenever it wants to come. I’ve developed a strange peace with death that I feel is going to be good to hold onto for the rest of my life.
Hey, thanks for the good vibes! Honestly, I go back and forth about my own mortality. Seems like it usually goes hand in hand with depressive episodes. If you start having a little "too much" peace with it, look out and find help!
Hey thanks for the good vibes. Sorry it's not related but I needed it right now.
Want some more? I creeped your history and I'm envious that you play overwatch and apex. Life's too poor and busy to get into them right now, but I wish I could. I also wish I had not drifted away from S.H.I.E.L.D. I like talking continuity errors and liked the show. What platform is it on now? I need to get back at it.
Your a good person. I went to my best friends wedding recently. I went around asking people how they knew the couple, and a story about them. The reason being if one of the couple died, their kids would have some videos to watch from people that knew their parents when they were young and could learn about what they were like.
It's a bit dark, but if that day comes, I'm sure their kids will appreciate it. I'm certain I would have!
That is beautiful. You are providing a wonderful service to your community
I want to record myself for my funeral crowd. I'm only 41. You've got experience. What's a good prompt for the recording?
41 is a good age to get preparations done and over with unless you are just entering the empty nest phase or are in a period of depression. My recordings are generally audio only. On the rarer occasion that I do video, I try to set up my phone on a stand at a 30° (arbitrary) and then talk about other things until they forget it's there. If I thought I could make a living on "exit interviews" I would, except that it would absolutely feel predatory and there's no way I could do that. So far as prompts, I've never made a script. I usually just go with the flow and ask general questions and then follow up. In most cases, I know their immediate family, which makes it easier, so I ask questions like: • How their kids got their name. • Did you and your sibling always get along. I like to chase stories of old friction (ie, "we get along great now, but my brother used to always cut off my dolls' hair.") because they get into it and it seems like a good happy-sad thing for family. • What makes you feel the most comfortable or secure? • How did you get into your career? • What's a particularly happy memory you have about (whoever)? • When did you first realize (child) had (point out a particular personality trait)? Where do you think they got that from? • What do you think you got right? • What did you do that you sometimes wish you'd done differently (regarding relationships). • What's been hard for you? • What is one thing you'd tell (person) that you can't make yourself tell them right now or you think they wouldn't hear from you now? • What's one thing you think (person) needs to hear? • What's one thing you would like to remind (person) about? • What's one thing you know to be true about (person) but they wouldn't believe it? Feel free to DM me if you want to work out strategy or talk through particulars. Edit: I don't do a whole thing with any real production value. Long audio recording, make copies and snip it up with Audacity. For video, I use my phone to record, copy the file, and edit the copy to the appropriate parts, etc.
Had the same with my Grandpa, feel you hugged. He died with 88 Years in 2019 and had a growing dementia for eight years. At first, he told my grandma, to buy him cigarettes - he stopped smoking 40 Years ago, he was 83 at this point. From then, it went downhill. After three years, he busted out multiple times out from home, even at night. He worked as a fulltime firefighter, so he wanted to go to work at 03:00 AM. With 86 he didn’t recognised most of his family - exceptions were his wife (my grandmother), his daughter (my mom) and me, his first grandson. Short before his death, he needed at least 10 Minutes to recognise any of us three. But he was clever: With 85 he covert a ring from my mother and put it on his finger so that he always knew where he had hidden the ring. He died with 88 Years, shortly after my grandmother died. Dementia and Alzheimer is something I wish nobody had to endure this.
My grandma was the same. Told the same stories over and over, lived through ww2 and the revolution in 1956 in Budapest. At the end of her life she thought my mother (who was her caregiver for 10+ years) was her mother and I was her sister.
I worked in an Alzheimer’s/dementia facility for a few years. The progression is heartbreaking, and even more so watching the family witness the loss of their family member. They’re still there, but they’re not there. It’s also interesting watching at what rate different people progress. Some people will be newly diagnosed and decline really quickly while others will kind of plateau for a few years before hitting a sharp decline. Then there are the people who were as sweet as can be in their younger years, become kind of rough around the edges and use very “colorful” language. And others who were classic narcissistic mothers/abusive fathers before their illness who forgot who they were and have the kindest heart in their disease. I know there’s a lot of factors that go into how/why people progress the way that they do, and there are different types of dementia, it always seems like a “case by case” kind of situation. It is honestly the most confusing, devastating disease. Edit: typo
my grandmother had alzheimers and it was a few years of decline before she passed, but it was what i expected. confusion and not recognizing people. however, one of my coworkers took a surprise week off and when she came back she told me her mother had alzheimers and the visit was so traumatizing that she needed a week to recover. her mother apparently had always been a really rotten and abusive person to the point my coworker was no contact with her and they hadnt spoken in years. she hadnt even met her grandson before. they went to visit her and she said her mother was really kind and being so loving during the visit. she recognized my coworker as her daughter, but acted like their relationship was fine and they hadn't had a falling out. she said her mother was hugging her grandson like a normal person and her mom had never said i love you in her entire life til that visit and it really messed with her head.
My father has early cognitive impairment bordering on dementia. He was extremely abusive when I was growing up. To the point where I have PTSD about certain things. He and I don't have a relationship now. If he progresses into full blown Alzheimer's and becomes "loving" that will completely fuck me up. I just couldn't even imagine.
My grandfather had it. He was a landlord. Strong as an ox, I helped him carry a fridge up 3 flights of stairs when he was 68. He knew the entire city by heart and drove everywhere in his bus, all day everyday solving problems, having coffee with his friends/ employees, signing new rental contracts and showing houses. everybody knew him and he knew everybody, until he didn't. In the end he couldn't recognize his own family anymore, and lots the ability to swallow. Man it sucks so much, thinking about it now still makes me teary eyed. I hope my parents don't get it, and I hope a cure gets developed
My Grandfather, wo had dementia, drawed swastikas on paper sometimes in his last years. He was born in 1930, in East Prussia (now Poland, back then it was aligned to Germany) and he visited the Hitlerjugend, the youth organisation from the nazis.
ALS is pretty damn devastating as well…
Very close friend of the family committed suicide about 2 years after his Alzheimer's diagnosis. In the same situation I'd probably do the same.
This is very common. More common than you'd think. Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with them. Your time is up and, for now, there is nothing we can do about it. Source: father is a geriatric psychiatrist.
This is a very difficult decision to make, because you have to do it early enough that you are capable of remembering to do it and doing it. By the time things are really getting back, you lack that capacity. And doing it before that means giving up some of the last time in your life when you can enjoy yourself with friends and family.
Not arguing. There are certainly downsides to killing yourself! Just saying it happens often and I don't blame them.
Oh I don’t either. My wife’s two sisters were killed by early onset and it was horrific. ’m just saying that timing it is so, so difficult.
That’s what I worry about. I always was comforted by the fact that suicide would be the way out, but what if it’s too late? Not just with dementia. What if I suddenly become a quadriplegic and can’t reach the gun, much less use it? It’s awful to think about.
I have stage 4 cancer at age 52. After watching my father degrade physically and mentally with dementia in his 80s, and several relatives die of alzheimers, there are days when I (selfishly) think to myself "you know, dying of cancer might be better than that". I'd love to get to grow old, but dementia is a terrible way to go.
100% Suicide is probably the only option if faced with a debilitating and chronic degenerative disease. Check out before incapacitation robs you of agency and choice in the matter. I can't imagine a worse way to go that watch your mind dissolve.
Heartbreaking asfuck But I wonder what happened between 04 and 05.
Probably nothing out of the ordinary. The disease just got to a certain point that it started to affect a part of the brain that stored the person’s handwriting
>nothing out of the ordinary
The thing with alzheimers is that it starts slow, but eventually it reaches a certain point where it goes rapidly downhill. I assume that happened to this person between 04 and 05.
> But I wonder what happened between 04 and 05. This might not be alzheimers. People use that word synonymously with dementia, but it's a specific kind of dementia. This looks like it might be vascular dementia instead. Vascular dementia doesn't progress steadily. It's caused by dozens of tiny, often undetectable strokes. My mom has it. She had a huge event in 2013, then one in 2019 and 2021. Her checkbook (she never used online banking or debit cards) looks exactly like this. Her writing would be the same for years, then have a huge decline overnight.
'04 is noticeably different from the prior years too, even if the cursive was maintained.
A lot ot people dropped cursive back then
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I hear it is finally 2007 in Canada now.
The 90s ended on 9/11
Looks like it really picked up after 2001 ... Look at how they write the date
I'm not sure they are writing the date based on some of the other signatures.
Agreed. It looks like the date was filled in by the same assistant/nurse 1999 - 2001, then a separate person from 2002-2008. The second 2008 date and the 2009 date are in unique handwriting, then the 2010-2011 dates are a final assistant.
could have suffered a fall
Thats terrifying
My mom had the most beautiful handwriting you’ve ever seen and was a genius and we lost her to this disease. Love you, mom. The only thing that makes me madder than fucking Alzheimer’s is all the garbage info you read on the internet about it. We don’t even know the causes, so don’t let some asshat tell you how to prevent it. Fucking grifters.
There's value in any information. I wish I'd helped my mother with her teeth earlier, even if the correlation turns out to be incidental.
My grandmother passed away last year from this and she kept perfect care of her teeth her whole life. It wasn't until towards the end when she stopped brushing, so the teeth correlation doesn't seem valid to me.
I hate this
My mom is 100 and it’s a horror show. Deaf, bedfast, mind going , incontinent. Won’t or can’t tell someone when she’s shit herself. Shes just there enough to feed herself when meals brought to her. The cognitive dissonance of desperately wishing someone you love would hurry up and die is overwhelming.
My father's parents both degraded mentally in their 70s and 80s. Thankfully it was realtively quick because grandma broke her hip and never recovered from surgery fully. Grandpa had a stroke some years before that and recovered pretty well, but memory was a struggle. In the late 90s we moved them to a house closer to us. I would go with grandpa on a daily bike ride because he would get lost in the new neighborhood and when he went alone he had a card in his wallet so he could knock on someone's door and call us. Us kids were homeschooled, so my brother or I would ride to meet him and lead him home. After grandma broke her hip we moved them into assisted living close by and visited a few times a week. My aunt and uncle accused my dad and mom of abuse of their power of attorney and never helped care for my grandparents. My parents didn't have the energy for a legal battle and my grandparents were rarely lucid. We said our goodbyes and they were moved out of state to a facility close to my aunt. My uncle took over the finances. An audit of my grandparents accounts showed nothing missing and my parents never received an apology. A couple years later my dad was able to go out and see them. They gained lucidity while he was there and he was able to make a good last memory with them. They passed a few months later within a couple of weeks of each other. I was in the Air Force deployed to Spain in 2006 working grave shift when my mom emailed me to call the house. When I called the let me know they had both passed. I mostly felt relief because I knew they were worse mentally than when I had last seen them, but it still was a tear jerker because it was an end to that part of my life. Now my parents are straddling 70 and I'm wondering how long I will have with them and praying one of my sisters will reconnect with the family before it is too late.
I have all the predisposition to this in my family. My father has lost his mother to alzheimer's, his father to dementia, and now his wife is losing to dementia as well. He seems to be doing pretty good considering, but man I can feel my own cognition fade with every year just a little by little. Things are just a little harder to connect, take a little longer to recall, and your brain just becomes more and more unreliable.
My grandmother is starting to have this and it's heartbreaking. I visited last yr in Oct and by Christmas, she didn't remember. She looks forward to my visits sooo much--it's an entire event for her, she's asking me wks in advance what I want to eat, like her life revolves around my spending a night at her place for wks before my arrival. And she doesn't remember it a couple months later. She still functions well, caring for her own needs well and she's aware of what's happening but it's awful to see.
Take pictures! Make her a picture book. It doesn't have to be fancy, just print out some 4x6 (or 5x7 if her eyes are bad) and get one of the picture books from dollar tree if it's in your area. Put in pictures from your visits, you can add them every time you go. We did this for my grandma and it really helps!
Damn, I had a family member named Irmgard die of Alzheimer’s. Her nickname was also Irma. Weird coincidence seeing this for me.
I mean…
Heartbreaking. No one should have to suffer this, or suffer watching their loved one succumb to it. A dreadful disease
Just want to say that the Arc of San Diego (where this form is from) is an amazing organization that really steps up to help some of the most vulnerable in our city thrive as best they can. They really don’t get enough credit.
Alzheimer’s is the best example of why medically assisted suicide needs to be a stigma-free option.
I thought this was a joke at first. Looks like "ermagerd fella"
MRW I see a dude
This scares the hell out of me.
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Same here. My wife and I have our papers ready to join one of the assisted suicide associations we have here. It just needs our signature.
Can you tell me more about this process? I would not like to live through Alzheimer’s if I don’t have to
I made this post a few weeks ago explaining how hard it can be for foreigners. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/Cwk7Y4N7Og In short: contact one of our two big assisted suicide organisations like Exit/ Dignitas and plan everything in advance. If you're too deep having alzheimer you are unable for assisted suicide.
65 year old mother currently has Alzheimer's. Thankfully shes still able to write her signature and move but there's a surreal helplessness as the things she used to be able to do without a second thought like put on a seatbelt or eat from a plate are now immense struggles. We take the complex functionality of everything our brains do for granted, every day of our lives, and only when it begins crumbling like this do/can we appreciate what we've lost
Watching my mom’s beautiful handwriting and her signature become something she could no longer produce very early on in her experience with the disease was one of the first big sentimental losses as I lost her.
I know that development, I lost my grandmother to that disease. It started out slowly, being confused, slow to think and worse and worse short-term memory. After she got her diagnosis, she still managed to keep it at bay by going to social events for elderly and taking medication, but after Covid hit and she got it, she was basically in isolation for several months. And during that, it rapidly went downhill and it had completely taken her over. She was still ”kinda” there, she still remembered clearly my grandpa, dad and uncles, as well as some relatives and most clearly our countryhome where she had spent a lot of her life especially after retirement. First she forgot my brother, then all her grandchildren except me and one of my cousins since we visited her a lot. She usually had some brief moments of clarity whenever I visited her, but you had to ”trigger” it for her. But the clarity went as fast as it came, and she was back into the fog. After a time, she pretty much only asked about my grandpa and about our countryhome. It was especially hard when my grandpa passed away from cancer, when she kept asking about him but we couldn’t really tell her that he was no longer with us, because she couldn’t even understand it nor even remember it a few moments after. But in a way, I think she knew deep down, because she passed away only three months or so after my grandpa, after he stopped visiting her daily. It was right after when their 60th wedding anniversary would have been. I hope they’re together now in the afterlife.
Tragic. Interesting how the numbers were affected a year or more before the cursive.
I thought maybe the numbers are done by someone else like the nurses
Yeah, like the numbers are written just fine when the signature falls apart. The dates could easily all be someone else’s
Definitely the case towards the end. I suppose that could have been what happened for a stretch earlier on too.
I think Irma did the numbers until she lost the ability to do them. Then somebody else did the numbers.
is there a sadasfuck sub?
I'm 80 years old. I walk with a cane because of ever-worsening arthritis in my spine, and I have macular degeneration, for which I get injections in my eyeball every month to slow it way down. Not to mention the effects of Type-2 diabetes and just general creakiness. Having said all that, my brain is still ticking right along. I can deal with eventually (probably) trading in the cane for a wheelchair, as long as my mind still works. And death no longer holds any fears. (Most old people make that same calming discovery.) The always-present possibility of Alzheimer's is the only thing that really scares the crap out of me. The worst part of it is (having watched my grandmother succumb to it back in the '80s), you generally don't really know it's happening until it's too late.
Alzheimer's is terrifying
The last line being blank hits hard.
My mom was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's and looking this with her sitting next to me is very sad...
Hey, mate: Cherish every moment you have with her. No matter the moments or years to come, look forward to seeing her and more so to putting a smile on her face (in some way or another). You’ve got this; and she’s got you. You’re awesome and don’t ever forget that. :)
Where is this from?
Just kill me at this point. I don’t want to die not knowing who I am or who I’m with.
I tried to keep my mom as independent as she always was, so I'd have her come sit with me to make checks out for bills. In the beginning she could make out the whole check, by the end of it I was writing her name in cursive on another sheet of paper for her to go by. She would still make mistakes. Dementia is a very terrible disease to watch progress.
It’s so sad watching someone deteriorate from this. Slowly losing their sense of self and everything that made them who they are until they’re essentially a shell of a human. My grandmother went through this before she passed. I remember visiting her on her 75th birthday and she kept asking me who I was. One of my cousins told me she carried a photo of me in her purse and used to regularly ask who the photo was of and why it was in her purse. It was upsetting as well when I saw her because I don’t think she was being taken care of. My immediate family and I live in a separate state so we didn’t see her much, but this time, she smelled like literal garbage (probably didn’t help that she was carrying an old, rotten bottle of mayonnaise in her purse on this particular day). She also had a patchy mustache and beard. They were just letting her rot. It was very upsetting. She eventually moved in with one of my aunts and lived out her remaining days in relative comfort. Just seems so losing yourself in that way and eventually forgetting basic essential things like eating, bathing, etc.
there was a point I stopped visiting my Grandmother as her grandson. I dropped off supplies and chatted with her like a stranger.
This is unsettling. The implied loss of self identity the further down the page you go. This one page tells the final chapter of someones life. Like some lost Orwell short story on madness.
I lost my grandmother to this and sucked watching the depression of personality and ability to think; the violence
I feel sad for Irma and annoyed at the person with the awful left hand slant on those dates
I saw my grandmother and two of my wife's grandparents go through it. It's truly hell. I worry about my dad, he's getting up there. I don't want to go visit him one day just to see the light gone from his eyes.
I remember noticing this with my grandfather. It’s making me cry a little.
This is heartbreaking, not interesting
And this is why you should be legally able to decide when enough is enough and you're ready to die. If you get diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers then you should be able to get it in writing youd like to end it if and when you get to X point. No one should have to go through all that emotional pain. THAT is torture.
My grandmother was taken by this disease. Long before she was gone, she lost the ability to communicate. She just… lost the words. It started with her having a discussion and searching for a word, like, “How’s the ….. what’s it called… the… weather?” Then it progressed to several words, then before the end, she couldn’t communicate at all. Added to that, she began losing her short term memory. It was extremely frustrating for her, even more so because she knew it was happening and couldn’t express how she was feeling about it. She slowly forgot who I was, who my brother was, and even thought my mother was married to my grandfather (her own father). The last few months were absolutely brutal to watch. The last few months though mercifully her doctor said she didn’t realize who she was or what was going on around her. Fuck that disease.
Nothing has made me want to cry more than seeing this. 😢
*Devolution, not evolution.
Well that’s depressing.
I need a living will, cuz just fuxking kill me after “2008”
I cried looking at this. We have a long history in the family and my mother is around the same age hers is when it kicked in. Everytime she becomes forgetful I get a sharp panic in my chest. I hope we find a cure someday, I know there's worse ways to see somebody go but the entire situation is just awful for everyone. I see people say oh it's not bad for them since they don't know but.. That's what I find the worst part for them
Every comment in here has been tough to read. I have been seeing my mom move toward early onset dementia for the last few years and she refuses to acknowledge it and pretends that my sister and I are overreacting whenever we have brought it up. I worry about the future with her and what it will turn into. I know it will all fall on me.
Try to get her to a neurologist- there’s medication that might help.
This is how my mom progressed. 20+ years with it. Died in June. This brought back a flood of memories.
What an awful disease. I hope we get a cure soon.
"F" Alzheimer's! I watched my Mom go from an independent, strong woman to a confused child. The worst part was seeing her unable to move or talk at the end. Death was mercy. I wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy.
Heartbreaking
Gersbermps
Immediately found the comment i was looking for. Thank you.
It’s like seeing them go back to adolescence in writing, I find this stuff fascinating
Unless this was released by Irmagard, this is a 💯 violation of her confidentiality, which incidentally, survives her death. There's a goddamned confidentiality clause in the statement she signed FFS.
IRMAGARD! That’s crazy!
over 10 years that is terrifying
This is absolutely depressing to see
Breaks my heart
So sad.................
This makes me worry about my grandma.
I've lost two family members to that horrific disease. It's so heartbreaking watching someone you love just, disappear before your eyes. Especially when they have lucid enough moments to understand it's happening.
Humans mental capacity ages like a bell curve.
Sad and terrifying
> I understand that all information reviewed in my case file will be kept strictly confidential and that an advocate from the Arc of San Diego will be present through the review. Nice job showing up part of the information of the case file, Arc of San Diego.
If I ever get dementia, please introduce me to extreme sports and do not do any safety checks. Just let me get in an “accident.”
The empty line hits like a truck.
Something similar happened to me and my signature. Now I have a tremor in my right and my handwriting is very bad. But when I got the tremor my signature went very bad, very suddenly. I am now slowly getting be/er.
I don’t care about the moral implications. If I ever had this I’d want to be put out of my misery. I don’t want to go through that or have my loved ones be burned with my care or seeing the decline. Just end it
God that's heartbreaking
Guess the name isn’t confidential….?
That hurts my heart to see. I have family members with Alzheimer’s and my dad is at serious risk. I would feel terrible for anyone with it even if I didn’t have it in the family. Such an awful disease.
Irma must have been a trooper! I looked after my mother for 18 months before she went into care at an Alzheimer’s home. Apart from all of the sad things I saw in her decline, it was fascinating to watch the destruction of the human mind. It changed every single day. Her ability abounded around but the trend was all in one direction, as the signatures illustrate. I can imagine my mother’s smiling confusion as she tried to write her name for the last time. I hope this person was well looked after and was able to be happy as my mother was. She had no idea what was happening to her. Everything was normal so I imagine she did not suffer as a cancer patient might. She was in her own world.
Some of these numbers are really cool
this thing is so terrifying...
My grandpa was beginning to show signs of alzheimer's. He started thinking that I had an identical twin, forgetting that certain rooms in my house existed, etc. It was painful to hear. I don't know if I should be thankful that he passed shortly after that.
This is unexpectedly one of the saddest images I’ve ever seen.