My uncle’s wife has Alzheimer's. My uncle described some of her mental deterioration to me and my brother.
One night she got up from their bed, turned on the light and started screaming at him: “Who the Hell are you?!! Get out of my bed. If my husband finds you here, he will kill you! I’m calling the police!” It took quite a while before he was able to calm her down. One could imagine what might have happened if she gotten a hold of his gun or a knife or for that matter, any type of weapon while she was in this delusional state, thinking he was an intruder.
Prior to that incident, they were driving to their vacation home in Florida for the winter, where they had been going to for many years, and during the drive, she suddenly stopped talking to him, wouldn’t look at him and seemed very nervous and upset and then started crying. Then she said something like, “Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t rape me again. I don’t know why you kidnapped me” and she then tried to open the door of their moving car.
A few minutes later she seemed to be fine but then later asked “Where are we going? Florida? Do we live in Florida? No we don’t. I want to go home now. We can’t elope like this or keep living in sin anymore, so you need to take me back to my parent’s house.” (Of course her parents were long deceased.)
As they were half way there, he had to make the decision to either go on or turn around and drive back to NJ. He calmed her down and they stayed at a motel for the night (and he stayed awake all night) and he drove them back home the next morning believing that more familiar surroundings would be better for her.
Many years earlier my grandmother also had Alzheimer's. This very same uncle lived the closest to her, near where she lived in a house in a retirement community after my grandfather died.
Several times she called him late at night saying there were strange (and sometimes naked) men looking through her bedroom window and trying to break in or that there were strange men in her house watching her get undressed or bathe for the night.
The first time it happened he called the police and drove right over to her house in a panic. When he and the police got there, she didn’t remember making the call or why they were there and the police found no evidence of an attempted break in.
Another time she called him to say there were little elves running around in her house and stealing things. And another time she called to say the house was on fire, he called 9-11 but fortunately there was no fire - she was hallucinating. As she could no longer live alone, was hallucinating at times and was also becoming violent at times, she was placed in a care facility. The last time, before she died, she didn’t recognize me as her granddaughter but thought I was her sister.
I really feel for my uncle (and of course for my aunt). He loves his wife so very much; they’ve been married for over 50 years but now she pretty much no longer recognizes him or their children or their grandchildren at all. He moved his wife into a nursing home because he could no longer safely look after and care for her at home. More than once she nearly caused a fire by leaving things on the stove unattended, she once left their house late in the middle of the night was found by a neighbor walking the neighborhood in her nightgown, along with the outbursts, her not recognizing him and accusing him of trying to hurt her.
But he moved himself into a senior apartment right next door that has an assisted living option, if he ever needs it, at the very same facility. At 83, he’s still sharp as a tack and in good health and pretty active, serves on the boards of a few companies and non-profits and still plays golf now and then. He has breakfast, lunch and dinner with his wife nearly every day.
Wow!
Sorry to hear about your aunt.
The human brain is such a fragile and unknown thing.
When something goes wrong, as in the case of dementia or Alzheimer’s, the person directly affected, your aunt and my uncle, seem to me to actually suffer the least.
They don’t know they are suffering from a problem but the ones who love them suffer daily.
I’m sure it hurt your uncle deeply to admit he could no longer care for his wife.
Good for him for living close to her and spending his days with her.
Thank you for relating those experiences. Seems you have
seen quite a bit of age-related illnesses & dementia. -
My uncle had something called “Lewey Body Dementia” or
at least that’s the best I can spell it. He would imagine
that “little” people were breaking into his house while he
was at home and stealing stuff. (There were some people in
that area who weren’t above something like this; so that
threw everybody off the trail for a long time.) So, deciding
what was real and what was imaginary was confusing to us.
I lived 9 hrs. round trip from his home; so was at a loss.
I did enlist some other kinfolks to take their turn with
him & that made a lot of difference. They finally put him
in a nursing home; but he wouldn’t stay there and would get
out on the side of the road and take off wherever he
decided to go. - I’m 70 now and just trying to do the best
I can to take care of myself & keep out of other people’s
hair!
My wife reminded me that my brother’s wife developed dementia and he took care of her until he woke up one night as she was a bout to plunge a butcher knife into while screaming to get out of her house! He reluctantly put her in a special care home where he visited her twice a day until she passed away...