I've not really seen this question but somebody might have already asked so if they did and I didn't see it, I'm sorry.
How do y'all deal in situations where your elderly relatives just say really mean things to people? Like for example if they tell the cancer center staff that they're fat or people in the store that they're ugly or other just mean/rude things?
I feel like I have to explain the whole situation every time, but I don't know that it does anything and it's really embarrassing. The medical staff has probably heard worse but the average people are really offended, like anyone would be when someone says something offensive to them out of the blue.
Sometimes the anxiety from the embarrassment is that, "just crawl in a hole and die," level and it's just... I don't know, it's a really bad feeling, but I feel like this has to be a pretty common thing, so if anyone has advice for how to handle it I would really appreciate it.
Often strangers can't tell that there's anything wrong with her mind so they just take it at face value.
https://www.alzstore.com/please-be-patient-alzheimers-cards-p/0187.htm
I think it would be a lot easier to hand out one of these cards than to explain the situation to each person she offends. God help us all with dementia and trying to have patience caring for our loved ones suffering with it.
There is a FB page of a woman named Betty Pettit; her son Joshua runs it and posts the cutest videos of her for Alzheimer's awareness. Betty is one of the few people I've ever run across who's suffering from AD who's 'cute' and 'sweet'. My mother was anything but. My aunt was a raging lunatic and the residents who lived in the Memory Care ALF I worked at a while back were basically all VERY difficult to deal with. One woman treated her husband SO horribly that we all cringed every time he walked in the front door to visit her. Sad but true. Betty is the exception to the rule. Her fan base loves her so much that she receives TONS of gifts in the mail daily. She's too confused to realize what they are or what to do with them, but she smiles nicely for the camera and thanks everyone for their thoughtfulness. It's too bad everyone suffering from AD and dementia can't be like Betty. Here is a link in case you're interested in seeing some of the videos of Betty he posts:
https://www.facebook.com/joshuapettit
I kind of feel weird about stuff like that channel you've described. I'm sure Josh is great, just because of my day job (I'm a psychologist) I feel really weird documenting people who can't consent even if it's for awareness and even if it's wholesome and they get presents just because it's considered really unethical in my career and I don't know that it can be done in a way that's not exploitive, even if it's not the intent. Like if I was to do something like that with a patient it would be a huge legal thing that would need a lot of oversight and I'm pretty sure it would never get approved just because it's so hard to know for sure they'd consent to showing themselves not in their right mind. I just have a really hard time with stuff like that, even if the intentions are good.
It's the same reason I don't like seeing channels about kids on the internet, even if it's just, "look how cute my baby is," because I don't know that that kid wants to be on the internet. Even really wholesome intentions make me really nervous.
Especially if it's not anonymous. If this message board wasn't anonymous I would never post about my granny on here. And I'll never use her name. It just hits me as wrong. It makes me really nervous.