3 ms·

One of my grandmothers had dementia in her final years, so I watched her go through these stages. I think you've described the stages quite well. In the first t

One of my grandmothers had dementia in her final years, so I watched her go through these stages. I think you've described the stages quite well. In the first two stages, she suffered terribly; I never noticed a stage 3. My grandfather put up a heroic effort to care for her at home well into stage 4, but eventually she had to move into a nursing home, where she spent several more years in stage 5. But it looked to me like those were some fairly happy years for her. When she was of sound mind, she was always worried about countless things. Now she was cheerful, watching the world in wonder, and occasionally flirting with a fellow resident.

lqet 6y ago
> occasionally flirting with a fellow resident. Most of them do. Unfortunately, we also had some men in late-stage dementia who were pretty obvious about their sexual interests. Needless to say, this often caused problems with female residents. This is an incredibly different topic to bring up with relatives: we once had to tell the wife of a resident that her husband was happily grabbing breasts all day. Whenever something like this was brought to the attention of relatives, it was usual denial at first, and then accusations that the staff was responsible. That being said, the neighboring nursing home (for old people without dementia) had an incredibly sweet case where a male and female resident, both over a 100 years old and widowed for decades, slowly started a relationship. By the time I was leaving, they were holding hands all day , going for short walks and he was constantly making her gifts of all kinds. They were like teenagers, completely in love.