Anyone dealing with a parent who has Parkinson's dimentia?

[testdepth]

I recently had to travel to California to gather up my father who is 75 and bring him back to GA to help him. It's been almost a month and it is very difficult for my family. He came out here a few minutes ago and demanded to know where his wife and kids were. His wife passed away nearly 8yrs ago and his only kids are myself, daughter and another son. Out of the three of us I am the only one that stepped up to help him. It took about 15 minutes to calm him down and convince him I was telling him the truth. Anybody else going through this?

 

[AirOpsMgr]

I can only speak to what I learned in approx the past 6 years, which unfortunately ended last Feb.

My father was in his 60's & still working when he was afflicted

 

[testdepth]

Sorry for the loss of your father. My dad was diagnosed about 9yrs ago and it finally progressed to this point. He is healthy except for the Parkinson's, dimentia and short term memory loss. How did you learn to cope with this? It's not like they come with a techmanual.

 

[Spridel]

No, but this breaks my heart and makes me miss my dad.

 

[SteelRinger]

My wife and I are in the process of figuring out what to do with her parents now. Her dad was just diagnosed. We are going to take them in in order to deal with it as her Mom definitely can't.

 

[BIKER13]

kept my mom for 4 years.My prayers are with you.hard road my friend.

 

[Flammenwerfer]

You may do well to find a doctor that is actually a specialist in Multiple Sclerosis for him. I've had MS for 11 years and the specialists I go to in Atlanta actually treat a lot of Parkinson's patients as well. Apparently a good bit of the medicines for both coincide. It's a sad time to be in right now as far as medical care goes, there are so many drugs and treatments in Europe that have substantially increased the quality of life for Parkinson's patients....and of course our FDA won't approve them here.

My wife's grandmother was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's but it's very early stages, she is in her mid 60's and it is effecting her mental state more than her physical at the moment.

 

[atljetmech]

We dealt with my wife's father who was afflicted with Parkinson's for twelve long years. Its a tough situation and a terrible thing to have to go through for patient and family. Best of luck to y'all.
Under the same giant MD umbrella, my mother was diagnosed with ALS and in took her in less than a year.

 

[AirOpsMgr]

Sorry for the loss of your father. My dad was diagnosed about 9yrs ago and it finally progressed to this point. He is healthy except for the Parkinson's, dimentia and short term memory loss. How did you learn to cope with this? It's not like they come with a techmanual.

There certainly is no manual, and unfortunately, there aren't many answers (that I could find as we all attempted to traverse the constant undulations of his nature).


Please understand, nothing that I state below should be taken as "It was his fault" - we all knew very well he did not have control of his faculties:


- No one could pinpoint where it began; it was one of those "all of a sudden" things that he decided to go see a Doc about (you know most men of this age don't go see a Doc unless bleeding or losing a limb ..... so I can't speak to inception)

- Over time, he began to realize motor function issues; so did those that worked with him

- He wouldn't give up driving, eventhough he already had 1 questionable at-fault accident

- He was only restricted from driving after driving through my brother's garage door ............ (he was exhibiting regular control issues, &, my brother was housing him ...... just sohappens my brother is a LEO & had to make a decision)

- While left unattended (in good status during early stages), he rolled out of his bed, wedged himself between his bed and night-stand; unfortunately, my mother was out of town & due to not showing any major systems at the time (due to new meds), no one checked on him ...... several days later, he was found.

- after extensive hospital stays, he seemed to get better with meds, lived with constant oversight, but then began to deteriorate; moved to a nursing home

- At the nursing home, it was a constant undulation for several years, lots of ups and downs, but for the most part, trending down

I don't think it would be appropriate for me to recount too much more unless within PM; I'm not comfortable going into much more detail as to what occurred next, needless to say, there was a great deal of dementia, horrible accounts during his time in the Navy, thinking he was still in the NAVY, immense time-lapse issues, etc.


Suffice it to say, a horrible, horrible affliction; still trying to cope