Alzheimer's End of Life Concerns

Questions and Answers

1. Our family has been told our Mother who has been in the...

   - Our family has been told our Mother who has been in the local Long Term Care Facility for 2 years now she has advanced Dementia with psychosis, quite possible Vascular Dementia, but she has over the past month started with severe agitation, hollering as one example "help me" over and over even with us...
   1 Expert Answer

2. How do you comfort someone who is dying?

   - How do you comfort someone who's dying? My relative is depressed and in hospice care, and I don't know how to comfort someone who's dying.
   1 Expert Answer, 1 Community Answer

3. How long can you live with dementia?

   - How long will someone with dementia live? It's difficult to predict how long someone with dementia will live -- the disease progresses differently.
   1 Expert Answer

4. Is it common for a patient in the late stages of Alzheimer's to still know everyone?

   1 Expert Answer, 1 Community Answer

5. Should we tell Dad he's sick?

   - Should a person with severe cognitive impairment be told about a cancer diagnosis? My father is in a nursing home after suffering a serious traumatic brain injury. He was recently diagnosed with a lung tumor which may have already metastasized. Due to his frail health, surgery or chemo are not feasible options...
   1 Expert Answer, 1 Community Answer

6. Do we tell my grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimers, about a death in the family?

   - Should I tell my relative with Alzheimer's about a death in the family? Or will the news about a death only upset an Alzheimer's patient?
   1 Expert Answer

7. How much longer will my mother with severe dementia live?

   - My mother, age 87, has had severe dementia for over five years. She does not know where she is or my name, although she recognizes me as someone close to her when she sees me. Her quality of life is nil. She has sundown syndrome and does not remember her childhood, her children, her grandchildren or great grandchildren...

Topics, Blog Posts, Articles, Checklists, and To-Do Lists

1. How to Cope With the "Living Death" of Alzheimer's: Anticipatory Grief

   Article - Anticipatory grief, or mourning a person who's still alive, is a condition common to Alzheimer's and dementia caregivers facing the "long good-bye."

2. Questions I Wish I'd Asked Mom

   Blog Post - Reflections on a first motherless Mother's Day.

3. Alzheimer's Caregivers' #1 Challenge

   Blog Post - A new survey of Alzheimer's caregivers reveals that daily care isn't the worst of it. Grief is.