Dementia in Japan: my grandparents have dementia 4 (the worst day)
The second day since she moved in my parents house, it was the worst day for us.
The day, My grandmother could not communicate from the morning. During the day, she got lost in the house, could not understand anything around her. And the night, she had urinated to rubbish bins and the carpet around the bins.
Today I will talk about the worst day of my demented grandmother.
It was her second day of staying at my parents' house for my grandmother.
From the morning, she could not communicate at all. She spoke, but she just put random word together and anythings she was talking did not make sense.
For example, she was saying like "I go fish and, TV, TV, so that TV have a eat, then bought it yesterday"
Even I asked her if she wants something to drink like "do you want coffee?" by the simplest sentense, she answered me like "no, no, I am ah,,,, you can eat something".
My parents' house is also not big as people get lost, however she did. She could not find bathroom even there was the bathroom right in front of her. So, I or my mother needed to guide her to the bathroom everytime she need to go bathroom. She also forgot how to wash her hands after went to bathroom. She did not recognized the handle of water faucet, she was just standing in front of the washstand for a while, and asked how to wash her hands. She also forget how to wash her face later.
After getting lost in the home problem, she also forgot how to wash her face, brushed her teeth so many times in a day, and some other demented issues were cotinued as somebody always needed to monitor her whole day. In the night, because it was her second day and wanted to give some privacy, we closed the room she was sleeping. However, the closed door caused problem in the night.
In the night, we did not expect her to go to bathroom so often, and fell asleep. My grandmother was quiet in the night, we did not think it is the sign of nightmare.
For instance, she urinated to 2 rubish bins and around there.
Next early morning, she woke up and came to the living room. She said good morning, and talked about something weird like "yeh, last night was very long, it was inconvenient, there was not bathroom, so ribish bin,, I did,,,,,,rubish bin". Then my mother asked her what did it mean, and went to the room to check what was going on. Then she noticed weird smell and urine spreading around carpet and 2 rubish bins. The urine almost reached some furnitures made from woods and had some important things inside.
So cleaned up carpet, removed rubish bins from the room, and decided to keeo opening the door.
Since the day, my mother and I could not sleep very well night because if something noise come from her room, we had to check her.
Well, these are the nightmare for us and the day we decided to think about to use nursing home program for her.
The reasons of her dementia symptoms got worse are probably following things;
1, changed environment: it was the second day since she moved in to my parents house where is not so familiar to stay for her
2, room was closed and she did not recognized the door as door: after everything happened, she told us she thought she was closed in the room.
3, originally her dementia was worse than we expected: at first we thought my grandfather's dementia is more serious than her, however it was probably misunderstood ( I will introduce the reason we thought my grandfather's dementia was worse in another blog later)
4, she was nervous because of different environment, new life style, and new people to stay with
5, the room was not enough organized as there are some of my mother's and my clothese and some other stuffs (we should have prepared her unexpected actions and behaviour)
What we learn from the day;
1, keep opening doors and possibly light on especially bathroom
2, cleaned and organized stuff in the room she is sleeping just in case if she did something
3, wake up and check when she made noise during night time
4, put some sign on the bathroom's door
From the next day, she seems that she got used to stay in my parents apartment and we got used to live with her, so problem can be avoided most of the times.
Dementia in Japan: my grandparents have dementia 3 (one day of my grandmother)
My grandmother thinks I am someone like a nurse.
She thinks her daughter (my mother) is somebody else.
She thinks my father is somebody suddenly appare in the house.
She thinks her husband (my grandfather) died.
So, our family decided to call each other with nickname like my grandmother used to call us in order to make her not confused.
This article, I am going to write how my grandmother spend a day in my parents house.
Grandmother's schedule of a day:
6:00 - wake up
7:00 - 8:00 breakfast
~watch TV~
12:00 - 13:00 lunch (usually do not really eat)
~watch TV~
14:00 - tea time
~watch TV~
18:00 - 19:30 dinner
20:00 - bath time (every 3 days) or sleep
During daytime, she goes to walk outside with my mother, sometimes with my parents and go a bit far to do shopping, walking and refreshing.
After she sleep, she wake up and goes to bathroom almost every 2hours during the night. Since she cannot find bathroom (toilet), I or my mother lead her to get there.
This is just a example of daily schedule of my grandmother and family, it depends on date, but briefly we follow this schedule currently.
Dementia in Japan: my grandparents have dementia 2 (symptoms of dementia)
Following my previous article, I will write here about demented grandmother's symptoms.
My grandmother:
Cannot:
-communicate properly
-understand who I am, my parents are as well as her husband
-wear cloths by herself
-go outside by herself
-turn on and off switches
-read (do not understand what the phrases/letter means)
-wash her body by herself
-have sense of seasonality as well as day and date
-find toilet
Can:
-walk slowly with support
-speak, hear and sleep
-physiological functions (eating and drinking (however does not recognize thirst), to urinate, to defecate (although constipated), )
-remember past memories sometimes
Problematic behaviour:
-urinate on rubbish bins and the bathroom (bathroom and room for toilet are separated and different) in the house
-try to give money (financially she cannot afford it)
-wash dishes although she forgot how to wash
-suddenly upset
-pull a diaper apart
-hide things/forget where she put
-bring things from somewhere
-hide everything in her bag
-brush her teeth with something not tooth brush and tooth paste
Others:
-very sensitive to the cold
-a bit of high blood pressure
-hallucination
Light dimentia symptoms have stared few years ago, and rapidly it has become serious last year. She used to live with her husband (my grandfather), and last year, she was fainted due to constipation and dehydration. At the day, my grandfather called to my mother and told her something wrong with my grandmother (She was already half uncounscious at the moment). When my parents went to see what was going on my grandma, she was smeared with her excreations and lying on the floor, and my grandfather was trying to clean up that. My parents called ambulance and she was hospitalized for a while. It seems that her symptoms of dementia rapidly became serious.
Dementia in Japan: my grandparents have dementia 1 (Current situation)
Dementia is a big concern in aging society like Japan.
As I mentioned above, my grandparents have dementia. My grandmother already cannot understand who I am and my parents are, and my grandfather cannot live himself because of his problematic behaviour caused by dementia.
In this article, I am going to write current situation of me and my family including grandparents.
Situation:
Me: a student. For some reason I came back to my parents house few weeks ago and will stay here for a while.I am taking care of my grandmother when she is at home (particularly during night and when my parents are out).
My grandmother(age 90): nursing care level 2 (Probably she will be level 3 very soon)
She moved to my parents house currently, and staying with us. Until moved in here, she and my grandfather lived in their tiny house together with a cat.
My grandfather(age 90): nursing care level 2
We sent him into a nursing home currently.
My mother: doing remote-base work, and working from our house now. She is the one who mainly taking care of her parents (my grandparents) and doing house work.
My father: has not been working for a while, but doing part-time about 10h every week. He has gotten 3days outside work very recently and the work will start soon. Mainly he drives my mother and grandparents occasionally.
My parents house: 3 bed rooms with bathroom, toilet room, kitchen and living room. I and my father are sleeping own rooms and my mother is now sleeping living room since my grandmother is sleeping in my mother's room (closest to toilet)
(*Since more than 10 years ago, my family has been having some functional problem like almost-Hikikomori father and low self-esteem mother, so this blogs might not be applicable for typical Japanese family cases. )
Greeting / ご挨拶
Hello, my name is JapGirl. I am Japanese.
こんにちは、じゃっぷがーるです。
Some of you probably expected something different with my blog name, sorry about that.
ちょっとびっくりするかもしれないペンネームですが、海外からのアクセスを考えての事です。もし不愉快な思いをされたら申し訳ありません。
I am just gonna share some Japanese life as well as society-related topics of Japan in my blog. I do not know who are interested in these topics, I hope you enjoy it. You may find some Japanese interesting culture or social issues that are not seen if you are not in Japan.
これからのブログでは主に海外向けに日本の生活や社会問題、文化などを発信していく予定です。どれほど続くか、また読んでもらえるかはわかりませんが、とりあえずつらつらと書いていきたいと思います。
I wil write my blogs in either English or Japanese or both languages. I have been studying English as my second language. So, I would appreciate if you do not mind about my grammar mistakes and structural problems ( Advices about English are always welcome).
ブログは主に英語か日本語、もしくはその両方で書いて行きます。自身、英語は第二言語として学んでいる最中でありますので、色々間違いなど気になるかもしれませんが、ご容赦いただければ幸いです。
