Linda, please let me add my endorsement to Beth and Gwen's comments.   You
will never convince your mother of anything, not even that day is day and
not night.   Her ability to reason and think things out for herself is
broken.   Reasoning things out for herself requires memory, and that is the
very thing that is afflicted.   Make your plans for her the best way you
can.   Even if you got her convinced at some point, it would only last a
moment before she forgot about it.

My mother in law was the same way, burning up the pots and not bathing and
all the same sort of things.   We were forced to resort to a kind of
trickery, to get her to come for a "visit" with us.   The visit never ended.
She imagined she was going to go back home all the time, but of course it
never happened.  She got moments where she seemed to understand, but they
were gone in 2 minutes.

For who? Could she remember that? FWIW again, very few Az patients seem to
know they have Az, if only because they forget, so your mother seems quite
atypical to me.

No need to shut up :-)

As a ray of hope, did you know that 50% of people over 85 have Az? So if you
had more relatives who died aged around that age or more, and didnt have AZ,
then either you are in the normal range, or it might be a statistical blip.
From what I have read, its only EOAD that *can* be genetically caused. Can
you remind me how old your mother is?

Steve - you are right in pointing out that I was not clear with what I
wrote - her long term memory is good to excellent (depends on the subject I
think) her short term memory is almost completely gone. They did an MRI to
rule out (most?) other causes and it was normal - although their are signs
of a previous stroke - a small one they indicated - no swelling or tumors
etc to be seen.
All the classic symptoms of Az are there - straight out of the text books -
in the order in which they list them - they are also what I read on the news
groups. By reading the 7 stages I would say she is between stages 5 and 6. I
do wish that she had not been so good at hiding what was happening - perhaps
we could have gotten her help sooner - I read the disease cannot be cured
(wouldn't that be nice) but with some patients can be at least slowed. I
fear that as far along as it has progressed even this may not be possible.
She was able to hide it well until this fall- then I felt that something was
wrong - since I live out of state she was able to "keep it together" for a
period of time over the phone when I called until then and my sister did not
notice the deterioration until then because she would see her often enough
that she did not notice the slow changes - kind of like when you see the
niece or nephew after 5 years and say - gosh you have gotten tall - where to
the parents that are there all of the time it is not obvious.
We have decided that when I am back there next weekend we will just have to
start to move some personal items - she will never agree to it - and she
will never be well enough to live alone again. It will be really hard for
all of us. The choice is to do this and have her with us - sort of - depends
on the progression - for a few years or have her die alone because she will
get the medications wrong - will get very sick very fast and will have some
sort of accident or fall that will cause her death - great choice huh? We
all have families and none of us has the ability to move in with her - how
about her moving in with us? Maybe before - although she said she would not
move in with me as that would mean moving out of state away from my brother
and sister and the grand children - my sister has 2 children. But now you
cannot trust mom not to decide to turn on the stove in the middle of the
night - she did it while I was staying with her as well as getting up all
night - what amazed me was that it was every hour on the hour - with in a
minute or so - 11:30 - 12:32 - 1:30 - 2:30 sleep then until 5:31 and then
every hour after that - after 3 nights of that I was a wreak. I would stay
up until about 1 AM cleaning - I put dishes in the sink and when she got up
and asked what I was doing - I would say I was washing the dinner dishes -
and hour later same question same answer - she never noticed and had no
concept of time at all  - nor did she always notice I was still up - into
the bathroom for her and back to bed - one hour later the same thing. And
she had no idea of how dirty the counters were and the floors and the
bathrooms - my mother the queen of clean - so depressing to see. Laundry not
done - not even much to do - I think she had not washed anything in a long
time - chemical cleaners mixed in with the food in the cabinets - that one
was scary - she had the vegetable cooking oil under the sink with the Drano.
Things in the most unlikely places - and papers - years worth of magazines
and papers - (this is another thing that tells me this is not extremely
sudden) - a 4 year old magazine over a recent telephone bill on top of tax
returns from two years age mixed in with Xmas cards and every other type of
paper - there was no 'date' history or organization to it - old with new
financial with readers digest. In every drawer and closet also, bedrooms,
kitchen, living room - my sister and I went quickly through it and that took
hours - after she went home - when I thought it was done - I opened the
large laundry basket in the guest room - full to the top - recent bills -
old papers. So sad. We were careful to leave some sorted stuff out so that
it would not be immediately obvious that we had gone through stuff. Now I
think it was a precaution we took in vain - although I would do the same
again. I don't think it would be a good idea for her ever to go back even
for a short visit of an hour or so - it would be awful to try to get her
back to the care facility after that.
Force someone you love to do something they hate or let them go and hurt
themselves. She does sometimes seem pretty content in the care unit (my
sister emails each day) and of course wants to go home - and at times (as
others have written that home is one she lived in over a decade ago.)
There is my litany of the pain of Az.
I do have a question - my brother and sister both have POA's - and she has a
will with an attorney in which my brother is executor. From what I am
reading mom - in a few years - I can pray for more then that - she is 82 and
has apparently had this for several years - will become unable to speak -
are there other legal papers we need to think about?
They will not let her just walk away from the care facility but she is
pretty stubborn - they would call us - but what could we do if she insisted
on leaving? This is possible when we begin to move personal items - she
tends to forget pretty fast - but this might be a big enough jolt that she
could remember where she is for several hours - has this happened to others
when moving stuff? She is going to see the doctor next week - and he will
tell her she needs to be in an assisted living situation - I expect that
because she will not like to hear it she will ignore it. Would a letter from
the doctor be a wise thing to get?
What an awful disease - and yes there was plenty of talk of killing
herself - we found 4 sets of car keys and the loaded gun and removed them.
She did point out that she has an electric stove so that would not work to
stick her head in - wanted one of us to push her in front of a moving car -
we declined.
So much pain for her - she knows something is wrong but cannot remember or
be sure of what it is. It just tears at her and at us.
Thanks for listening (reading)
Linda

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