Lovely People

I officially joined The Alzheimer's Society today. I just called them and asked to join - the lady on the other end of the phone was lovely. So, I'm all signed up and I'm looking forward to getting the monthly magazine, Living with Dementia. I'm hoping it will help us cope with some of the things we have to deal with, such as the irrational ideas, which are very fixed, and can't be changed.

My Mother-in-Law was diagnosed with vascular dementia about a year ago, maybe less, after spending almost 6 months in a geriatric assessment unit. Although her behaviour has changed over this time, and the medication seems to be helping with some of the worst symptoms, there are some things which we find very difficult.

Every week we have the same discussions. One of the main ones is about rubbish - Mum is convinced that there isn't enough room in their bin, and always wants us to take some of their rubbish home to put in our bin. I think, at most, they half fill 2 bin bags before the bins are emptied, so there is plenty of room.

This spills over into "don't bring me anything, how will I get rid of it" - when we gave her some hyacinths for Mother's day, they were met with immediate panic about getting rid of them. We had to promise to take them away when they stopped flowering.

So I'm looking forward to any advice we can get - or at least to get a feeling that it's not just us who are going through this, and that we're not alone.