Wiped Clean...

My father in law is getting the first signs of alzheimers and it is hard on the whole family. Forgetting even small pieces of your life is difficult and i'm sure in the final stages it has got to be terrible for the person and the family. A great bit of understanding and patience on the families part is needed here.

My grandmother had it also, & it was very hard on the family especially her daughter's that took care of her. To not remember that you just ate, was awful, they had to keep locks on the frig. & cabinets so she wouldn't over eat. She was a tiny little thing, only 4'1" tall!! She was so cute..Lori

I don't know of anyone with Alsheimer's but it must
be terrible that your own mother cannot recognise you. Maybe the person suffering the illness becomes a child again.

My grandmother did not have Alzheimer's but she had a tumor on her brain. The last time we went to visit my dad he went next door and brought my granny over, she knew my husband but did not know me or my children even though she would just stare at us. It did bother me but it did give me comfort to know that her staring at me and my children and smiling that it might have been her thinking of her past and better times.
She was my dad's mother and my mother's sister would go visit her and she would think it was my mother and would ask her where my dad was then other times she would not know any of them.
If it was me that had Alzheimer's I'm sure it would be very hard on my family just as it would on me if it was any of my family.

My mother had only a few instances when she forgot her kids, but had many more when she forgot that her husband, my dad, had passed away in 1963.. My mom passed away a year ago last February but before she did, she went through a horrible time when she did forget so much.. She was constantly looking for my dad and we couldn't tell her a hundred times a day that he was dead, that would have been horrible for her to hear over and over every day, so we told her "lies".. We would tell her, Mama, you know he had to go to work, he just left a few minutes ago, or he is down on the river fishing, when we were younger, we grew up across the street from the Tennessee river, my dad was a commercial fisherman and worked at a sand & lime company that was located on the river.. Sometimes this satisfied her but not always, she worried because my dad had a very bad heart, (in 1963, when he passed away there wasn't any way to help him, there wasn't enought technology at that time to do what can be done today, but in my mom's mind he was alive and she was lost somewhere in the late 1950's) so we had to get on the phone and make pretend phone calls, make pretend excuses and even go out in the rain to look for him.. She just knew he was on the corner at a store sitting and talking to them "old men" and she wanted him home where she could watch out for him and take care of him.. She didn't want him to be wet and cold and get sick becuase she knew that it would kill him to get sick..

It can just about kill you to go through this and you have to be inventive so you don't have to be the bearer of bad news to have to be told over and over to your grandmother, you have to keep her as happy as you possibly can, becuase if you don't and you fail even the least little bit, the guilt will get the best of you after she is gone.. Take care of her and love her as much as you can, because she will be gone before long but you will still be able to keep some of the best memories that you can use to remember her by.. It does effect the family in so many ways, but you still have to keep a stiff upper lip and go on for their sakes and for your own as it can drive you crazy if you let it.. Be strong for your grandmother and love her as never before..

It is very sad to see this happen to anyone. I have an Aunt who has it and she has three sons and she thinks they are her brothers, my Aunt doesn't even have any brothers, only sisters. My mother is her younger sister and she remembers when they were young kids but she doesn't even recall having children of her own. My cousins are so sick over this. She is 78 years old and can remember her childhood up to about the age of 10 then she doesn't remember anything after that in her life. I wish they could find some cure for this awful condition. I often wonder if Alzheimer's can develop after severe emotional trauma because she was fine and healthy until my uncle started to have an affair and left her 40 years of marriage, she got severely depressed and everything went downhill after that. I don't know if some thing like this can cause or trigger this condition or maybe the Alzheimer's was destined to happen anyway.

I volunteered at a hospice for a while and they gave me alzheimer's patients. It was so sad. They didn't remember seeing me from one time to the next of course. Some of them did seem to remember their family members but I think they also remembered things wrong. One lady was very upset with her family that put her in the hospice. She just didn't understand. I think it must be very hard for the family members.

both my grandmothers and one of my grandmother's brothers had it.
the one grandma,her memory was shot,she lost her motor skills,and she got frustrated,in her case it wasn't too bad.
the other..was "amblutory(sp?) altzheimers" meaning she wandered off if you didn't watch her every moment.she also became violent
due to confusion.she took a swing at me once because she didn't recognize me at all,and thought she was being kidnapped.
she seemed to be stuck at 10 years old literally,she couldn't remember anything forward of that.it was strange.it killed us but we ended up having to put her in a hospice because of her violent
tendencies.she was hurting herself and others.

So far I dont know anyone with that disease,yet. I did watch part of an interview with Sandra Day O'Connor who retired from the Supreme Court to spend time with her husband who is suffering from this. I don't know anyone,yet who has this but I worry that I may get it. Sometimes I have days when I cant remember simple things like an actors name or where I put something the day before. I often wonder what my kids would do if either my husband or I developed this. It is so sad to see a person who no longer is aware of family and friends.

My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It was so hard to see her forgetting us and calling us someone else. Then she began to forget how to walk and those kind of things. It finally got to where my mama and I couldn't take care of her any more and we had to put her in a nursing home. That was so hard for us to do but they took great care of her and she just laid there in a fetal position for years. It was so painful to watch her. Then she finally went home to be with Jesus. I know she is so happy now. But, it is so hard to watch them slide into that state.