1 in 4 American seniors will be stricken with dementia. Odds are good we will experience this passage with our parents, close friends, or spouses, or possibly enter this ourselves. We need to have frank conversations about choices before it becomes too late and ensure these thoughts are recorded and known.
A recent article brought this to mind for me after already dealing with both my parents entering various types of dementia. Read the article here.
Know
- Dementia is neither curable or reversible, but there is a spectrum and there may be plateaus that last years.
- Some medical procedures can speed up deterioration, but pain management and relief has accelerated in quality over the years.
- There is help having this serious conversation in online locations and within the healthcare system. Be sure to check the specific documents and laws in your state and county.
Blow
- Prolonging life can be extremely painful to the patient and raise anxiety among the patient’s loved ones.
- The slide into debilitating dementia can occur over a short period of weeks (see my note below on my experiences with my parents).
- Once the patient moves too far into dementia without an assigned “proxy” it can be very difficult to carry out the patient’s wishes for their care.
What I learned with my dad’s dementia
Dementia hit both my parents. my father at 82 and my mother at 87. ad spiraled downward from a relatively healthy condition to a bed-confined death in five months (diagnosis was pretty certainly Alzheimer’s according to the treating psychiatrist). Fortunately, Dad was married to a wonderful woman, a retired corporate executive for a small regional telco, and they had worked out all the details for each of their end of life care.
How my mom’s dementia differs
Mom took a tumble in her apartment in 2019, spent a couple of weeks in the hospital and now lives in an assisted care facility variously believing she is in the girl’s school she worked in when she was 19-20 years old or that she is still in her apartment where she lived the previous five years. Mom doesn’t know who the current president is, cannot give the date, does not answer the phone (complains about the ringing noise), cannot change the channel on her TV (if she even remembers how to turn it on). I’m sure you can read between the lines. Mom refused to make plans, even when my sister and I met with her precisely for that reason about six weeks before her fall.
Fortunately/unfortunately, Mom was in such bad mental shape that the hospital, the Medicare people, the county senior services people, eventually the judge who approved my guardianship papers, and everyone else recognized me as her proxy so we could move her into the proper care and organize her finances.
Heed my warning: take the time to organize and record your loved ones’ wishes before it becomes a lengthy and expensive process.
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Live well.
In the book 51 Life Lessons Every Boomer Male Should Have Learned by Now, Jim writes about key lessons that he believes every evolved boomer male needs to know to make his third act his best. They fall into one of three categories: health, wealth and happiness. Each lesson serves to inspire and motivate you.
