Twinlynn

Susan -

I know how you feel. Although my mother died 5 years ago, I will always remember the depressive aspect of her dementia more than anything else. We had her in her own apt, in our apt building (she had caregivers during the day), and no matter what medication--anti-depressants, Aricept, etc--was tried....she just remained so sad and so depressed by her confusion. She continually mourned the long-ago deaths of her 5 sisters. She was the last of 9 brothers and sisters. Plus, she knew how her brain was deteriorating...and until the end was able to express pretty eloquently what "losing your mind" was like. (She was diagnosed with having suffered a series of small strokes. Not Alzheimer's. But...dementia--even with all its variations--is still dementia.) :-(

After an episode of heart disease, she went straight from the hospital to a "rehab" center. (I won't even begin to get into our two-month "relationship" with this place--not the care staff, but the doctors and administrators--or, like the Wicked ***** of the North (or is it the West??), I will spontaneously combust!!)

Anyway, Mom (85 years old then), as confused as she was, like your Mom, knew she wasn't "home"--and asked us every waking hour where she was, how unfamiliar it seemed, why she wasn't home...and, actually, rather humorously, would comment "I don't know why....but...seeing all these OLD people here just depresses me!!" (Mom was so humorous and funny in her "day"....she would have laughed heartily at her own comment. :-)

Of course, once we did get her home (and, boy, did that "rehab" want to keep her, so they could collect the Medicare!!), she STILL found her home unfamiliar and said the furniture looked "different." (Six years earlier we had had to sell our childhood home of 50 years, because she just could not manage things--so the "new" apt--even with her same furniture, was never truly "home" to her.)

The sad thing for us about her stay in Rehab, was that she lost so much of her remaining ability to talk, laugh, etc. Somehow...even with my sister and I there to visit every day--and her usual caregivers there seven days a week from 8 to 6--she still suffered mental loss from her sudden removal from home to the hospital to the rehab. Unfortunately, this is very, very normal. Whether they suffer from dementia or not--elderly people, who get ill and are sent to the hospital, can go thru a long period of trying to "get back" to where they were, mentally.

My Mom never forgot who her "girls" were (although we were 54 at the time, we were always her "girls" :-) , but she never really mentally recovered to where she had been before her hospitalization. On the other hand...with her increasing heart disability and diabetes and other illnessess...this mental loss could also be explained by these physical disabilities. The only "good" thing we could stay about her new stage was---she finally forgot the immediacy of needing to mourn her lost sisters...and she gradually became less depressed, the less she was aware.

I just wanted you to know that you are doing all the right things for your mother---all we can do is rant and rave and cry (and sometimes laugh) at the disease. But if you keep on showing your mother the strength of your love (I would just sit with Mom towards the end, holding her and stroking her forehead), that love you feel for her WILL get through to her, even though it is no longer on the level it once was. To her last day, my mother's eyes would twinkle as soon as my sister and I walked through the door. That "twinkle" was worth a thousand words. :-)

In the end, my sister and I became far sadder than my mother, who gradually became more and more detached from her surroundings. But I know how very hard this stage is, where you are watching your own Mom expressing her depression and confusion. (We did, in the earlier stages, write down the answers to Mom's most frequent questions...and she actually found great relief from having these explanations available to her on a pad of paper. She'd ask the same repetitive question for the 100th time...and we'd point and say "Mom, read the answer to your question." And---would you believe--it HELPED!!!!! My Mom had a love of reading, so maybe that had something to do with it!) :-)

I have such a hatred for this disease....the relentless way it tears our loved ones from us. One thing that did help a bit, during and afterwards, was--reading as much as I could about it...and listening to others' experiences. You realize that you don't have to sail your little boat all by yourself in this big mean ocean--there are others out there who understand how you feel.

So, stick around here and you will find some wonderful friends to support you and to help with your questions. :-) Lynn