Vascular Dementia

My dad is not an Alzheimer patient. Vascular dementia is what he got. I still can recall what the doctor warn me when she confirmed the my dad disease, she asked me if I got high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar and she told me that I have a pretty good chance to inherit this from my dad.

Vascular Dementia is a result of insufficient oxygen and nutrient delivered to brain cells. And so the ability of the brain deteriorate when some of the brain cell is dead. My great grandma and my grandpa got dementia during the last stage of their life and grandpa's younger sister is suffering dementia now. I am in a family with a history of cardiovascular disease almost all my uncles have high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

So, I really need to start control my diet from now on. I must constraint from taking delicious fat and oily food and exercise regularly. To free my loved one from falling into the trap of being a dementia caregiver.

4 things that he cares about

As his ability to analyse and memorize deteriorates, things that are of his concern are becoming fewer. "Complicated" stuffs or tasks are impossible for him to perform. So the seven stuffs in his world now are:

1) His personal possessions, like his watch, his spec, his sunglasses, his handset, his wallet and his bottle, all these stuffs have to be with him, he will start panic and bother us if any of them were out of his sight or malfunctioned. he always wants to have his bottle full, even there is only quarter of the space is empty. If his bottle leaks he will ask for a new one almost immediately. His sense of immediacy is the biggest headache to us, we are not free at all time to entertain him.

2) His meals, every morning he pulls my leg to wake me up, asks me for breakfast. And the same for lunch and dinner. He forgets about his high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high glucose level, he wants to savor delicious food and get pissed off if he could not have them.

3) Being skeptical on our whereabouts, I mean he is very scared to be left alone, if he heard any creaking of opening a door and the sound of starting a car, he will think that we are going any where and reminds us to bring him along. He always moans that we go for a vacation without him, and sometimes even complains to others.

4) Day dreaming. He used to be a hardworking father, at least from my recollection of the past, I mean he would keep the house clean, especially his cars and do the repairing if any thing in the house is broken or malfunction. But now all he wants is just to sitting there, doing nothing and day dreaming, I wonder if he is actually pondering anything. He has just totally changed.

As suggested from the references to websites, books and doctors, we are conscious that we have to keep him using his brain and avoid letting him to day dream too often. So we keep asking him to read news papers, writing, not exactly writing just copying the some passage, and sometimes ask him to solve so simple mathematics equation, addition only, he cant even solve a minus. 

For his unreasonable and quite often emotional breakouts, we just have to deal with it with patience and care, but I admit that I am not doing very well on it, sometimes there are just too annoying. But I believe sharing the burden within the family is a good solution of it, just don't put all this pressure on the sole caregivers. What to do this is the only way.

This is the sign of deterioration, I know, I really hope that he could maintain the current severity until the end of his life, it will be the greatest blessing to us now. 

Self centered

He starts to become self centered, he doesn't care about how other feels anymore. He will just simply rant and complain if thing is not the way he wants.
when his wrist watch malfunctions he complain and keep bothering us to take for repair, immediately, if not he be  impatient and keeps ranting you and worse still blames us for not bringing him to solve his problem. He wants it to be done almost immediately regardless of the time of the day, or if we got the time to entertain him.
He has changed completely, and completely lost the ability and sense to care for others.
I know, he is dementia, I should not blame him on his intolerable behaviors, but it is just difficulty to go through it.
After all my mum, the care giver has done for him, it is not the physical tiredness that pisses her off, but the psychology depression of not being appreciated shatters her heart.
And I deeply pity him for losing his care for his close families that if he is aware he wont be so.
Oh please maintain this severity and don't get worse any more. Please