Daily Challenges With a Dementia or Alzheimer's Patient

Caring for an elderly loved one is always a challenge. But add dementia, Alzheimer's or other conditions to this mix, and just getting through each day becomes a challenge. As any caregiver for a dementia or Alzheimer's patient can tell you, the person their loved one once was slowly fades and is replaced by a stranger. And quite often this is a stranger with bizarre and inappropriate new habits. People who were once very neat and clean can take on habits that make three year old children look like Miss Manners.

It's pretty easy to take it personally when their words or actions hurt or are endlessly frustrating. Sometimes it's hard to remember that it's the illness talking or acting out, not your loved one. It is difficult in earlier stages of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, because the person can often seem quite normal much of the time. Sometimes the bizarre or inappropriate behavior can seem to come out of nowhere. Often these things happen when you least expect it and when it's most embarrassing and least convenient to deal with. You find yourself saying "no" to your loved one nearly all day long it seems.

In the case of our loved one with dementia, we have one very special "no" that is constantly uttered. "No! Don't rub your nose on that!" "No! Use your Kleenex, not the kitchen towel to blow your nose!" "No! Stop picking your nose at the dinner table. Go wash your hands!" Seriously, our loved one will rub her nose on anything-and I do mean anything. It doesn't matter if she has a nose full of snot or not, she has a compulsion to rub her nose on grossly (bad pun here) inappropriate things. Now it's not like she has constant post nasal drip or something, because she doesn't. It's just a bizarre compulsion.

It doesn't matter how many Kleenex or hankies (yuck! I hate them, but it was worth a try to see if this would curb her bad habit) you give her or scatter around the house. She nearly always wants to rub her nose or blow it on something she shouldn't. It's so bad, that we removed the towels and put paper towels in the bathroom for her to dry her hands on and to protect ourselves from her nose and snot germs.