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Caring for someone with dementia can be very frustrating. My partner’s mother was a difficult woman to get on with before she got Ill. She would often try to lure him into abusive situations by use of her legacy. This used to upset him because he was self reliant and proud and just wanted to have a relationship with his only remaining parent, without the blackmail. So for many years they stayed apart with her pretending to have moved back to America at one point. Out of the blue he got a very shakily written letter saying she had had multiple heart attacks (plus the usual nonsense about the will). When he got there they had some moments to reconnect but she was miles away from where we live and we don’t have a car so visiting her was a whole day thing. He then found out his cousin had been aware of the illness and the increasing vascular dementia for years and had been pressuring her to change the will in his name. Or had he? It’s hard to tell with dementia sufferers what is real, lie, delusional or reconstructed narrative based in all three. Then the calls from the police started coming. She would use her free bus pass to travel from town to town and report her son for stealing from her when he was many miles away at work. This was very stressful and his drinking got very hard for me to handle. She would also try and give her things away to strangers and promise to leave her huge legacy to taxi drivers. She was terrified of dying alone so my partner worked with social workers to get her residential care and a financial guardian. She seemed to get on well there. Eventually she did die. Leaving him out her will as we all suspected but at least she wasn’t confused or prey to exploitation. There should be local groups where you can meet up with people in a similar situation and exchange coping strategies. If you don’t mind me asking do you know what kind of dementia your grandmother has?
