Keeping days straight.

• By Dubbie42
• Reply 3340067
• September 1, 2012 at 7:53 pm
• Report post

Go ahead and set up the chalk board but don't put too much hope into it helping her. The visual may help some, but remember it is not just their memory, but at some point it's the confusion too. You may have something there she needs to remember and to you it's simple, but she may not be able to comprehend even the simplest of things. Sometimes, patients aren't even able to recall something a couple min. after you tell them, so give it a try, but as I said, don't be disappointed if you don't get the results you are hoping for.
Good luck and if you do find something that works please let the rest of us know. I find that telling my husband about things in advance confuses him so I wait till it's time for him to get ready, etc before hitting him with something. He either forgets what I told him immediately, or fixates on it and I have to deal with him asking about it constantly. I do have a chalkboard that I put dates on but it's for my son and I so he knows when I have to be somewhere. That way he can plan to be here to watch my husband since he cannot be left alone for even a few minutes.
Prayers for you and your sister. What a sweet lady you are to care for your sis. Keep us posted

• By MeReindeer
• Reply 3341325 · In reply to 3340067 by Dubbie42
• September 2, 2012 at 11:22 am
• Report post

very good points.. I am a distances from her, so Would not be able to update it. May become more confusing.

• By cmn1 (Inactive)
• Reply 3341800
• September 2, 2012 at 2:41 pm
• Report post

Depending on where your sister is in disease progression, your calendar idea sounds like a good one to me. My husband and I tried something similar during the first year or so and it seemed to work pretty well. Then, he started forgetting to look at his calendar and to-do list but could use them when I reminded him. Next step, however, was that he could read the words but didn't seem to be able to take appropriate action. That was the same regardless of which one of us had made the notes.

At about that time, I attended a class for caregivers. I was told that writing is abstract and someone with dementia has difficulty (or simply cannot) bring the abstract into reality. He could read the words, "brush teeth" but couldn't translate that into action. I quit using the written lists and began with verbal cues and sometimes visual ones -- never more than one action at a time. About four years later, that's still working.

Certainly worth a try -- anything is, right?

• By Macs_help
• Reply 3475660
• October 21, 2012 at 2:29 am
• Report post

My father went through that progression from understanding and using a calendar to not understanding what a note meant.
He can now understand and use perhaps half or less of the notes that used to help even a few months ago.

Keep such a calendar, and write simple things that are important to the person if that person has some sort of comprehension of what the written notes mean. My father made a really big deal out of something simple like "Go to park with K_____" and really got a lot of interest when there was a family party like "P____ Birthday". He knew to check the calendar to see that he had a doctor's appointment or something.

One of the earliest clues that he was no longer relating the calendar to actual events was that he no longer could figure out when or why to cross off the days.

Now the calendar is still there, but the rest of us use it to keep track of doctor's appointments and so on. We will talk with my father about what is on the calendar, and he will be interested in the event, but he is no longer using it the way the rest of us do.

He still has moments when he does think about the calendar, though. One of his favorite ideas for most of his life was to ask us, "Do you know what famous thing happened today?" and he would always have some obscure historical fact to tell us about. He still comes up with things like that.

• By andydandysmom
• Reply 3475984
• October 21, 2012 at 9:27 am
• Report post

I keep a white board for my husband. I put the day on it and the hours I will be working. Occasionally I will write "eat lunch" on it. That's the only thing I use it for. Lately he has forgotten to look at it. He knows I am at work but forgets when I will be home.