By proceeding, I agree that I understand the following disclosures:
I. How We Work in Washington. Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services. APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid. We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour. APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment. You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints. Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or
[email protected] to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights. APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.I agree that: A.I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information"). B.APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink. C.APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site. D.If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records. E.This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year. F.You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
*If I am consenting on behalf of someone else, I have the proper authorization to do so. By clicking Get My Results, you agree to our
Privacy Policy. You also consent to receive calls and texts, which may be autodialed, from us and our customer communities. Your consent is not a condition to using our service. Please visit our
Terms of Use. for information about our privacy practices.
As caregivers, we need to keep ourselves from becoming total zombies by engaging, entertaining, and making a good thing out of something unfortunate. No reason not to have fun. No harm in playing along.
Consider yourself playing a virtual reality game in THEIR world. Wear their goggles. Don't expect them to wear yours.
My bro, who had Lewy's would sit with me by the hour and tell me what he saw.
He would see elaborate vignettes, anything from a garden/pool party outside in his yard to an immigrant woman huddled in the corner with her child. He would look in the distance and make out a Diego Rivera portrait of the flower market in Mexico, who calla lilies and men in baggy white pants where I saw the tranport vehicle in white with a rounded fender and black wheels. But I could actually begin to "see" what he saw in some sense. Whether his Lewy's would have got a good deal worse or not, I don't know. I DO know that agitation of any kind made the hallucinations more frequent. When he went into ALF and was no longer trying to manage at home he was so relieved and he had fewer and fewer hallucinations. Things like patterns (hotel rug or marbled walls) could bring on his hallucinations.
We didn't "argue" what we saw, but DESCRIBED what we saw to one another. He once said to me "I am not glad I don't see the world now as others see it, but I am glad that I know WHY" because we often discussed his diagnosis.
I would discuss this with your hubby's doc. Some have told me that a mild anti depressant can help both the anger and the hallucinations and the compulsive acting out. For some it doesn't. But something must be tried or you are close to being unable to manage care in home.
I sure do wish you luck and I am so sorry. This is such tough stuff. Often there is medication that help hallucinations caused by Parkinson's but it makes the gait less stable; meds that help the gait often makes for more hallucinations. Talk about a Catch-22!
We can't tell her that it's not happening because she doesn't believe us, also because she sees me doing something bad inside her head when I am literally standing in front of her talking to her. When I ask what I did, she yells at me and tells me what she saw me doing in her head. So there is nothing we can really do or tell her.
This is the nature to this disease and what works for one person may not work for another. We tried medication to help alleviate this symptom and had some success, but meds come with all sorts of other issues and warnings. Talk to his doctor or a Psychiatrist. Best of luck
Write then down in diary with dates.
What is his diagnosis? I am assuming you have taken him to MD?
This isn't something a Forum of strangers can answer, but offhand this sounds exactly like Lewy's Dementia and is how my brother's dementia first manifested, and was diagnosed: VERY REAL hallucinations.
In the beginning he was aware that they were not real and he discussed them so well, giving such details, saying they were like a dream, but he was clearly out of bed and not dreaming.
For instance:
"I look out the window and there's a pool party and I first think 'now where did I get a pool, and when?'. There's a lot of folks, some with cocktails. One guy has an Elvis ducktail haircut, really thick dark hair slicked back, a white towel around his neck, white short shorts. "
and he could go on and on in details.
Another about an immigrant woman huddling in his corner trying to protect her baby. Right down to the clothing worn.
Once he told me that what he saw, a flower market in Mexico with everyone dressed in white was "Like a Diego Rivera painting." So you can see there the combo of being still "with it" and the brain playing such "tricks with his mind".
Whatever this is, you speak to him calmly. None of this "this isn't really happening"; DO NOT DENY WHAT HE SEES, because, trust me, he IS seeing it. Oliver Sacks, the neuroscientist so involved with the study of the brain said "They have a real world; it just isn't like OUR world".
You ask him for details. You keep a diary to keep record of his responses, whether disturbed, whether he realizes at all it isn't real.
And off you go to the MD.
I wish you the best. I surely do hope you will update us.
I would call 911 and tell them he's having hallucinations and that you think he might have a UTI or some other medical emergency. You don't need to mention he has ALZ because they might not take him since having dementia is not considered an emergency. Then once he's in the ER you can have him tested for UTI or any other medical problem that might be causing his symptoms and then when he's discharged you can continue to work with his primary or neurologist to find meds that might help him (if the cause of the hallucinations is his dementia).
Others will have better suggestions, but I'm thinking, try different responses every time. Maybe agree with him, play along with him, and don't correct him, or maybe ignore it. See what works the best.
Best of luck, my heart goes out to you