The medical practice that is caring for my parents' dementia doesn't classify people according to the classic seven stages, they use three categories: Early, middle and late. They put mom in the early category and dad in the middle.
Middle would correspond to stages 4 and 5 and I'd put dad in stage 5, probably closer to six than four. He still can form cogent thoughts, even if those thoughts are disconnected from reality. So...
...we had the family meeting I have described. In the meeting, mom was sold on the idea that they have to move out of their apartment into assisted living. In a comment that seems to identify where dad's mind really is, he said last week that they have everything they need in their apartment. In his best days, he didn't handle change well.
Well, mom has begun to prepare for the move and was cleaning out a closet yesterday and dad was beside himself.
He, of course, doesn't remember meeting with the doctors and seems to have only a fuzzy memory of the family meeting.
We talked to him yesterday and he said that he didn't understand what mom was doing in cleaning out the closet but he didn't like it.
And, he is going to do three things about it:
1. Call the newspaper,
2. Call the Veterans Administration, and
3. Call my brother to put things back in the closet.
What that means in context is that he sees my brother as the good cop and me as the bad cop.
Actually, I think my brother is more of a hard case in pushing for the move to assisted living than I am. But, that's where we are for the moment.
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