Hi everyone. My dad is diagnosed with Parkinson Plus disorder 3 years ago and now dementia is becoming the worst problem mom and us are dealing. First, he started to wet himself during night. We started to use diapers and he got happy to use them. Then he began to find it odd and constantly tried to take it out while sleeping or laying down and kept wetting himself and the bed. We kept using diapers at night and one day he wetted himself while walking outside. And occasionally he kept wetting himself during day times as he was doing all on purpose. I am saying on purpose because once when the toilet was full, he chose to pee in his clothes instead of waiting and we had to clean everything (clothes, sofa, room, etc). There is another odd behavior of him that is being growing. He is experiencing constipation (another symptom of Parkinson plus's effect on digestion system). He forces himself to defecate and uses his fingers to take the feces out. We are trying to explain the right and wrong all the time and he seems to understand but no development was shown. Until he got flu last week. All of the household got flu last week and he was the last getting the sickness. He was hardly breathing, talking and always coughing. He was in bad shape when he got flu but I wanted him not to recover from flu, because he was so normal. He was talking normal, acting normal. Never wetted himself or anywhere until recovered. He was sick but he was completely my dad like in the old days. After 3 days from he got flu, he started recovering and here we are. First he wetted himself at 3am in the morning. After couple of hours he wetted bathroom floor. The same day at noon he was taking shower and he tried to defecate by using his hands and the feces clogged the tub. After couple of hours he wetted bathroom floor and so on. He started acting abnormal again and the dementia is here with all of its power again. The main issue is that we are considering him doing all of these weird stuff on purpose. Because he was normal when he got flu, he had no energy to do all of these weird things. Now he is recovered and acting like he wants to draw attention to being cared. We are trying to understand him but, GOD, it is 5 in the morning right now as I am writing this and he is out of control and pushing us to our limits day after day.
He doesn't understand what he's doing because he has Parkinson's dementia. Please read up on it.
I'm not trying to be mean but have you thought about a memory facility? He unfortunately will get worse as time goes on. If you can't afford it, he can apply for Medicaid/Medi-Cal.
It's very difficult to keep dealing with the urine and stool. You may want to look into it for the future.
I'm sorry for your situation.
There are ups and downs in every type of dementia. Fluctuation is one of the prime characteristics of dementia that involves Lewy Bodies in the brain (which Parkinson's Disease Dementia does.)
I don't know why he had such a string of "good days" while he had the flu (and isn't it good he did), but I assure you his dementia symptoms are real.
Have you done any reading about the kind of dementia he has? Have you joined a support group?
Caring for someone with dementia is heartbreaking and stressful and just plain difficult. It helps a little if you have some understanding of the disease. Then you can direct your energies where they can do some good.
There are ups and downs in every type of dementia. Fluctuation is one of the prime characteristics of dementia that involves Lewy Bodies in the brain (which Parkinson's Disease Dementia does.)
I don't know why he had such a string of "good days" while he had the flu (and isn't it good he did), but I assure you his dementia symptoms are real.
Have you done any reading about the kind of dementia he has? Have you joined a support group?
Caring for someone with dementia is heartbreaking and stressful and just plain difficult. It helps a little if you have some understanding of the disease. Then you can direct your energies where they can do some good.
It is really really hard to deal with a brain, neurological disease such this. It is like rotten fruit, everything looks okay from outside but there is nothing good inside. He lost weight in this period. His muscles are gone, he was a strong built body man. His voice was so high that you can hear from any where. Now he cannot move his lips as he wants, he barely talks and it is like whispering. His eyes are weakening. He doesn't see what he is eating. He looks poor and helpless. I hope that there will be a cure for these diseases. I hope noone else has gets dementia or any other form of it.
Thank you all