Phaedra: How is your Father In Law? I've been wondering about him.
He moved into a nursing home dedicated to taking care of Dementia patients. It's much, much better than the one in our town, which gave him too many medicines to keep him calm.
As all residents in the current nursing home are Dementia patients, some 'rules' are meaningless and unnecessary for both sides. For example, in the previous nursing home, meals were served only for a fixed period of time, so they would be awakened to have breakfast in the dining area. However, Dementia patients might not feel hungry or sleep at night, like my FIL. When he was awakened, and he didn't want to get up, he became angry easily. Once, he shouted at the caregiver badly, and the nursing home just called the police and an ambulance to send him to the hospital (that took care of such kind of issues). When the police and ambulance guy arrived, he even slapped the person who tried to bring him downstairs.
He was sent to the hospital for two weeks, and we were requested to find him another nursing home. Thankfully, we were still on the waiting list for the current one, and he successfully moved into it a couple of weeks later.
His situation kept deteriorating, and he didn't read any longer. Most of the time, he just sat there and did nothing. He still recognized my husband but had no idea about his name or their relationship. They barely had meaningful conversations, as my FIL was no longer able to organize a sentence.
I watched some movies when I decided to take care of him at the beginning of 2022, but it's still sad to see him going through all the stages. Below are the movies that prepared us a little bit for what is approaching.
Still Alice / 2014
The Father / 2020
After Life (Netflix) / 2022
