Diagnosis, Delusions, and Verbal Abuse: Meme’s Story Part 7

Hello, everyone! This is a continuation of my medium series to raise the awareness of Alzheimer’s and Dementia. My paternal grandmother, Wanda or “Meme” as we call her, started showing signs of the disease in August 2020, later being moved to a long term care facility in January 2022.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 are found at the aforementioned links.

In the previous parts, I shared about my grandmother’s past and how we want to remember her. The real her. This was my attempt to share the positives of her and the life that she has lived for the past 90 years. However, this part unfortunately will not be so positive. And that’s okay. I want people to understand this disease and the good, bad, and ugly. If people talked about dementia more, there wouldn’t be such a stigma toward this disease.

I want to see and remember the real her. Not some other person that doesn’t know who we are or that we are trying to harm her. I mentioned that my father received harsh criticism and verbal abuse from her. This was before she was moved to a nursing home. These verbal accusations ranged from “I hate you,” “you never loved me,” and the ever popular “you’re trying to kill me.”

After a long six months of dealing with these verbal accusations, delusions, paranoia, and delusions in a nursing home. FINALLY, the nurses called my father to tell him that the doctors diagnosed her with dementia. Now, we still don’t know exactly what is the cause or the type of dementia. If you remember, I mentioned that there are different forms and causes. The following list is from the Mayo Clinic.

Dementia patients frequently make accusations against their loved ones, ranging from not loving them to believing a loved one is trying to harm them. Usually they take out their frustration and anger out on those that are closest to them. It’s not fair and it’s not right, but this is true.

1. “Alzheimer’s Disease: the most common cause of dementia. Alzheimer’s disease patients have plaques and tangles in their brains. Plaques are clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid, and tangles are fibrous tangles made up of tau protein. It’s thought that these clumps damage healthy neurons and the fibers connecting them.
2. Vascular Dementia: his type of dementia is caused by damage to the vessels that supply blood to your brain. Blood vessel problems can cause strokes or affect the brain in other ways, such as by damaging the fibers in the white matter of the brain
3. Lewy Body Dementia: Lewy bodies are abnormal balloon like clumps of protein that have been found in the brains of people with Lewy body dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. This is one of the more common types of progressive dementia.
4. Frontotemporal Dementia: his is a group of diseases characterized by the breakdown of nerve cells and their connections in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These are the areas generally associated with personality, behavior and language.
5. Mixed Dementia: Autopsy studies of the brains of people 80 and older who had dementia indicate that many had a combination of several causes, such as Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia and Lewy body dementia. Studies are ongoing to determine how having mixed dementia affects symptoms and treatments”

After everything I’ve researched, I am leaning towards Lewy Body Dementia because this is where hallucinations and delusions are more pronounced. But, I’m not a doctor. It’s bittersweet knowing that this dementia cannot be reversed nor cured, but my happy is thankful to have an answer for her behavior.

This picture is good representation of what caregivers feel when faced with a combative loved one with dementia. My father frequently says he would rather tear off his own arm instead of putting his mother in a nursing home.

And now, on to the bad news, my dad, sisters and I visited my grandmother last weekend. It was the first time we had seen her in about a month. My family was going through bad bronchitis and stomach flu at that time; therefore we couldn’t visit her. I called her the week before on the phone, and she seemed to be talking normally. But, let’s just say it was not a pleasant visit. It’s painful to recount, but here we go.

She was wheeled into her room shouting that the staff was trying to kill her; they had just given her a shower which she believed was a gas chamber. She shouted at my father that he never loved her, and that his siblings loved her much more. Also, she stated that she spoke to his brother and sister every night, even though they are deceased. Again, you cannot convince a dementia patient that their delusions are untrue. I watched as my father just kept silent as a broken man.

Then, her wrath turned toward my sisters and I. “You all put me in here for no good reason.” That’s the anosognosia or lack of awareness talking that I previously mentioned. Patients don’t realize how their condition. Although, when she is having a good day, she realizes something is wrong with her body and mind. I felt my hands start shaking as I put some new clothes into her wardrobe. “Just go ahead and burn those,” “I don’t want them,” “I don’t want y’all to do anything for me ever again.” She also didn’t recognize my sister, Kaitlyn at first, then said to her “You’ve done nothing for me.”

Dementia Caregiving: Verbal and Physical Outbursts Video

We tried to give her some food we brought, but she said that she wasn’t hungry and hadn’t eaten in about three days. I noticed that she had lost some weight. Dementia destroys parts of the brain that let a person know when they are hungry or thirsty. Also, she believed we poisoned her drink and we’re trying to kill her, me and my father specifically. “You’ve got the devil in your eyes and you’re going to hell.”

I managed to keep it together until we left her room. I hugged her and said I loved her. But, instead of responding with her normal “I love you, more.” She told me that I was lying and didn’t love her. I walked out of her room, down the long dark hallway, pushed the buttons to leave the facility, and just started sobbing. My father put his hand on my back and apologized for her behavior. Our family left utterly heartbroken. My mind keeps circling back to the horrible things she said, including accusations that my sisters were stealing things from her home or that we were visiting her to watch my father kill her.

I know that it’s not her. The real her. I understand that it’s the disease. But, it’s so difficult to separate the Meme I know and love from the Meme that is paranoid, delusional, and hurtful. It’s so painful, like having your heart torn by the person you love most and looked up to. I am hopeful knowing that she would be absolutely appalled at the things she has said, if she only knew. But, after reflecting, I guess I would be furious too if I truly believed my loved ones were trying to kill me.

I will see what happens in the coming days and visits to come. I just never know who I am going to visit, my real grandmother or the disease….

Part 8 can be found here.

I’m also raising money for the Walk to End Alzheimer’s Event held in Jonesboro, Arkansas on October 15th. Please consider donating to our team page. I’m currently thinking of selling bracelets as well for those that donate!

To all those fighting Dementia and Alzheimer’s,

All My Best,

Kelsey ❤