So my family was in town for a week and just left on Thursday. It was much worse then usual, an hour after they arrived my hubby had a seizure. My mom, not realizing that spider has a particular job in this situation tried to pull spider away and alnost got bit. Fast forward about 4 hours and my grandpa, who had alzheimers, tripped out looking for his dogs (that have been dead for years) we got him sitting on the sofa and spider came and put her head in his lap and splinter the terrier got on the couch next to him and about 20 mins later he had calmed down. Throughout the week he had many episodes of tripping out and every time spider and splinter were the only thing that worked. Spider even put up with stuff that i know she doesn't like, it was almost like she knew what was needed just like how she responds to seizures even though we never trained her for that.

Alzheimers is sad. This trip was particularly bad. He couldnt remember my dogs names so they were "grey" "red" and "black", and he knew who people were but he didnt know thier names. I asked my mom of other dogs do what mine did and she said no. They are the biggest pain in the ass in my life and mostly useless but when they needed to step up they did and im just amazed.

This is so cool to hear!
I think dogs understand so much more than we think!

I'm sorry about your Dad. It must be hard to see him that way.

Its my grandpa and things have gone very downhill since april. Im not 100% sure that my mom and her 2 brothers arnt making things worse. I do know that if he was a child or a dog what is going on would fall under abuse and neglect. Its not deliberate, its that my mom is an oncologist and my uncle is a veterinarian and they both think they know more then the neurologist. Its the family dynamics and how its relating to my grandpa's care that is upsetting. His mom and both my dads parents had alzheimers so on that end i knew what to expect.

I dont know why im shocked at the family thing, my mom knowingly put me and my sister in danger so my dad wouldnt withhold the child support check.

Some dogs are just made differently. I love dogs, but a few just have a natural aptitude for going above and beyond in situations. I kick myself often for not spending the money on getting Keno his CGC to become a medical therapy dog. He's a lot like Spider and just knows when something is off. He's just a mutt but makes a beautiful nanny dog. He can sense when I'm having a blood pressure issue and will "pester" and try to push toward a chair. he's never been trained but he just knows I need to sit down before I fall down and I need to get circulation back going and will try to lick my arms all over.

Elderly neglect laws are in place and if they are deliberately going against the instructions of a primary physician when it comes to administering medication and basic needs if they are the ones legally set to do so. It might be worth looking into having power or attorney revoked from them if they have it at all and removing him from their care if you can. My husband's grandmother had alzheimers and my grandma had dementia so I feel you on the woe of navigating daily life with people who may or may not know who you are or where they are at any given moment. It's a delicate position to be in.

They are following the doctor's direction for the most part, although i think the doc he is seeing is not up to current research, particularly on the giving someone with alzheimers psychiatric medicine. The alleged abuse/neglect is more along the lines of when something goes wrong instead of working through or diffusing the situation they go out of thier way to make it worse. Or they pull the his wife is going somewhere so where do we send him which makes the confusion worse. Oh and my mom and her 2 brothers are on such bad terms they are detrimental to my grandpa's health. One does something to spite the other and in the end its my grandpa that loses... not them.

Me and my sister have been discussing taking the family to court. I live in a bad area as far as medical care, the altitude and my house isnt big enough. My sister has talked about having him move in with her, but she is in tel aviv amd the worst thing that someone can do to someone with dementia is move them.

What needs to happen is he needs 24/7 home healthcare that is experienced with alzheimers and dementia. The last few people the va sent had 0 experience and when he told them to leave, they did. Someone that knows what they are doing would know its the disease.

So my mom throws the idea of me moving to Florida near where my grandpa lives and thats where i notice the huge shift of cultural differences. The only place i could afford to live near him is the trailer park. There is nothing wrong with living in an rv or trailer... I've done both, i even lived at a walmart parkinglot with my camper for 2 weeks but there is a huge stigma about trailer parks and im not moving from Colorado to Florida to live in a trailer park. And really i lived in fl till i was 16 i have no desire to even go visit Florida.

We moved my grandma from one house to another when she got where she couldn't take care of herself. She seemed to do alright with it, but she just had dementia. She would spend a month with us, then a month with my aunt, then a month with my uncle and we would just rotate her from house to house so no one person had the burden of taking her to doc appointments and the cost of an extra mouth. We did that until she was too difficult to physically assist then got outside care. Which was only the last month of her life. But we cared. We wanted her to be with people who cared even if she didn't really know us. She knew we were family but not exactly how. Would call us totally different names. You just roll with it. She was not an animal person but loved to watch my cat play. I'm not sure uprooting your life is the answer. Having a deeper conversation with the VA about who they send out and then having a deep conversation with the person they send seems an easier starting place. Moving people with Alzheimers isn't recommended but neither is flipping out on them. Could be the lesser of two issues to just move him and calmly work through that. I wouldn't want to be in FL either. I've rode out tornados in trailers. Have no desire to ride out a hurricane in one. lol.

Between hurricane andrew the overtown riots and father issues i have no good memories of Florida. Even as an adult florida always becomes a disaster. One of my biggest objections to Florida after not being able to afford it is the number of relatives i have there followed by my moms ability to show up if im anywhere near a real airport.

One family trend is to act like a helicopter parent until its inconvenient then pay someone to make it their problem then when the problem goes away it starts back over. And why i moved in with my grandpa starting in 7th grade. I suspect that my mom has some form of munchausen, at least with me when she didnt like what a doctor told her she would find a different one that did agree with her. I never really understood why she wanted so badly for me to be "mentally ill" being physically handicapped was enough of a hurdle growing up. And im really afraid history is repeating itself