Ways to Cope with Souse with Vascular Dementia
My wife sustained a 9cm right brain hemorrhage March 7th 2022. After 4 months in rehab to get her left side, legs, hands and arm and fingers to work again she came home July 1st 2022. She's had 2 severe psychotic episodes where she did not know me and thought I killed her husband. She even attacked local police once but was hospitalized. Now diagnosis is Vascular Dementia. About 2-3 times per month she has delusions that she just arrived here and starts looking for her husband (that's me) and thinks she is running a business. Fortunately the next dat she does not remember what happened yesterday. She has no short term memory and her long term memory is mostly mixed up.
What seems to work best is lots of sleep, takes medications (9 of them) regularly which I provide and monitor . Over the last few months she has had delusions in which she believes she got to our home, she still owns a music store business in Maine ( it was sold 20 years ago by her ex-husband ) She moved to Florida with me in 1992; after her divorce we go married in 1994, I try to keep her mind focused and busy with puzzles, crosswords, reading the local paper, daily 1 mile walks and I handle all the household chores, bills and all other things. The dementia is causing a slow decline. She takes Memantine, Keppra, Seroquel, Methanam, Ropinirole, Avorstatin and Norvasc and melatonin. Took her off Sertraline as it was causing frequent psychosis.
I go to the gym 3-5 times each week as she sleeps each day from about 10:30pm to 12 noon the next day so I handles all the chores, shopping of all kinds and plan and cook our meals.
Looking for feedback as to how to keep her focused as that's when she is the most calm and has much fewer delusions.
Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases Support Group.
I have Neuro-Cognitive Disorder and I am in a decline that I can detect toward dementia, so I'm keeping current with it as long as I can muster focus. My go-to right now for dementia caregiver material is Reddit. The subreddit is u/dementia, which has 34,000 members. Caregivers like you post very similar questions daily, and the responses are usually rapid and plentiful. I just counted >12 questions like yours on Reddit submitted just today, and it's early morning in the PacNW where I am. My wife will be my caregiver when/if the NCD degrades to dementia, and I want to try to lessen the impact for her, so I look for how-to's as well. I might try that in addition to Mayo.
Her Dr. told me to get our affairs in order so the Wills, Trusts, Healthcare Surrogate, Living Will, POA and Determination of Capacity have all been completed and filed. Also have a preplanned cremation set-up. The hard part is the daily routine which I'm used to now but am concerned that I may forget something. I have no health issues yet other that a recent bout of Prostate cancer which I am in treatment for now for 2 more months. I expect to be cancer free soon. We no family left as most have passed or live at the other end of the country. So the beat goes on.