AboutPaula Damgaard Expertise I can offer families and caregivers non-diagnostic answers to questions regarding the disease. I travel around the state giving courses on Alzheimer`s disease for nurses and CNA`s.
Experience
Past/Present clients I have coordinated Alzheimer's Clinical drug trials since 1987. I have coordinated the Memory Disorders Clinic since it's inception 1994. I also have personnal experience from caring for my mother who died of AD 5/2000 and presently from caring for my mother in law who was diagnosed in March 2000.
Question It is 1:00 PM in the morning and I just happened to find this wonderful and informative web site. I've been reading all the questions and answers for hours. My Mom is in stage 7 of her Alzheimer's desease. She was diagnosed about 4 years ago at the age of 85. She has declined rapidly after 2 hospital stays for dehydration and adema and is now in hospice care at her assisted living facility. In the past month she has stopped eating, will not even take liquids and is completely bed ridden. This past week she will not open her eyes and continually cries like a baby. This goes on for hours! Sometimes she cries and then will fall asleep for 2 minutes, wakes up and starts to cry again. Sometimes she holds her head as if she is in pain. The hospice care is giving her adavan, resperdal and she has a patch for pain. Her crying is very disturbing for me and my family.......we feel absolutely helpless. It's very hard to just sit and watch her cry for hours! Nothing we do seems to help! Is this part of her shutting down and reverting back to a child? With all that she's been through and we've been through ....this is the worst! I sometimes feel like I'm losing it. It's so hard to watch your Mom go through this........the crying has just put me over the edge!
Answer Nancy, I wish I could tell you why she is doing what she is doing, the best explanation that I can come up with is that the disease has progresses to the area of the brain that controls crying and is "stuck" on making her cry, I am sure it won't last long, even though it probably feels like an eternity already!
If you haven't tried it already, when you sit with her just give her back rubs or rub arms or her head at the sides by the temples it may not do anything for her, but it should help to make you feel like you are doing something to help her.
It is an awful thing to watch, I am with you on that one. No one can really understand how awful it is until they sit through it. Having watched my mom, I totally understand. The whole time I sat there, I thought we treat our animals better than we treat our loved ones!
I hope this is over for all of you very soon. It would seem like it should be from what you are describing. Take care of yourself and remember, you are doing the best you can for her. Paula
