My mother is my top priority now: a daughter describes how she became an informed and empathetic caregiver

Use this audio player to hear the page content

Nadira (name changed) is a highly-reputed consultant who has executed sensitive and critical assignments with several well-known multi-national companies. She is now taking a break from professional work and residing in India, caring for her 80+ mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s. In the interview below, Nadira shares how the progression of her mother’s illness reflected in behavior changes, how the family took time registering that these changes were different compared to earlier, more regular difficult behavior displayed by her mother, and how she has now educated herself on the condition and developed the patience, love, and empathy required to care for her mother.[note]

Dementia Care Notes: Please share some background information related to your family and situation.

Nadira: I was the first person in my extended family to leave home at 17 years of age – to study abroad and shape my future. I am the youngest of three children; my sister and brother are much older than me. It always seemed to me like there was a whole generation missing between my parents and I. Because of this, my relationship with them was always fraught with confrontations and rows, especially in my late teens and early twenties.

The relationship with my mother in particular was pretty fractious, probably because we both have very similar personalities; we are both headstrong individuals with quick tempers. Our blow-ups were frequent, harsh and at times even violent, because she seemed to be possessive and always wanted to have her own way.

After I left home for studies, contact with my parents was restricted to short annual visits. My contact with my siblings who were married and lived different parts of the world, was even less.

My parents lived in India by themselves because my siblings and I were settled abroad. Looking back now, I realize that my mother started showing symptoms of dementia around the mid-1990s. Without any knowledge of what he was dealing with, my father took care of my mother until 2001, at which stage my parents moved in with my older sister. Sadly, my father passed away barely 15 months after the move. It was after my father’s passing that my mother’s condition was diagnosed. My sister handled my mother’s care for seven straight years after this diagnosis, and then I took a sabbatical and moved to India with my mother to take care of her so that my sister could get a well-deserved break.

Dementia Care Notes: Please describe the initial symptoms that your mother showed.

Nadira: My mother began to act strangely around the mid-1990s, and this became more pronounced over the years. Some examples of such behavior:

  • Frequent episodes of forgetting things, like leaving milk on the stove till it burnt, or repeatedly opening the same container to check what was in it;
  • Lost interest in cooking;
  • Lost interest in dressing smartly (she was always immaculately dressed);
  • Repeatedly asking the same question in quick succession;
  • Very suspicious of my father’s motives and behavior;
  • Frequent outbursts of anger to the point of nastiness.

Dementia Care Notes: How did the family respond to such behavior?

Nadira: As my siblings and I had all settled abroad, my father was our mother’s the primary caregiver. Our visits to India were infrequent, and during our phone conversations he rarely shared his difficulties with us. It was only on our short visits that we experienced his situation first hand.

I think my father sensed that something was not quite right with my mother, although he never regarded it as a medical problem. He was extraordinarily patient with her, particularly in the later years, and was very concerned about who would care for her after his death.

In the earlier years, he would sometimes tell me, “She is very difficult now” or “Please find me somewhere else to live; I want to live separately”. I didn’t realise that this may have been said out of a feeling of exhaustion or frustration in taking care of her. Instead I wondered if it was a sign of the marriage breaking up. In hindsight, however, I know that the marriage became stronger and they needed and loved each other more in their twilight years. In fact, my mother became increasingly dependent on my father and would do nothing without him, and he, in turn, was tender and compassionate in his care of her.

In those years, my visits home would start off well for a couple of days before the terrible rows started. My mother would be very possessive and hated my going out to visit other family and friends. I had no understanding of her situation and became extremely frustrated with her behavior. Our rows were very nasty and often ended up with a bitter, hurtful exchange of words and sometimes even physical violence. Often I would pack up my bags and leave to stay someplace else. She would then soon seek me out to where I was staying and apologize saying “Please forgive me, I know I was not nice to you, but I can’t remember what happened; please come back home.” I went back sometimes, but often didn’t because I assumed her behavior was just her usual ‘nonsense’.

My sister related similar hurtful experiences on her vacations in India, with fights that made her pack up and leave the house, taking her young children along, to stay elsewhere instead.

Throughout this period my sister and I saw our mother’s behavior as gradual worsening of the sort of person she’d always been. It never occurred to us that something may be medically wrong with her.

Dementia Care Notes: What happened when your father’s health started failing?

Nadira: Only when he turned 90 did my father allow himself to admit that he was unable to handle my mother’s care alone. He agreed to move out of India to live with my sister. My sister became their sole caregiver from then onwards. Just over a year after the move, he suffered a massive stroke that left him completely incapacitated and bedridden. As he grew frailer by the day, my sister and I were concerned that, perhaps worry about our mother’s care after he was gone may be ‘holding him back’. One morning when nursing my father, my sister assured him that he need not worry about mother and that we would take good care of her and that he could ‘move on’ if that concern was holding him back. Our mother overheard this, and interpreted it to mean that we didn’t want him to live and in effect were “murdering” him, and she became uncommonly agitated and accusing. We felt terribly hurt by her words and accusations.

Dementia Care Notes: Your sister was the primary caregiver for seven years. Please share data from this period of your mother’s care.

Nadira: After my father’s death, my mother insisted on coming back to India and it was then that we first had her examined by specialists. She was diagnosed with ‘senile dementia’ and I recall the doctor telling us then that it was not reversible and that we should make arrangements for proper round-the-clock care for her. At this stage my mother was adamant about living in India, even if it meant living on her own. As a family we thought it would be therapeutic for her to be in familiar surroundings in the aftermath of my father’s death, so we went along with it for a few weeks.

My sister and I took turns in caring for our mother for a few weeks at a time. This was one of the toughest periods in caring for her. Being in familiar surrounding didn’t seem to help. She got increasingly agitated by the day. Everything seemed different from what she remembered it to be or wanted it to be. She would get very angry and even throw me out of the house. I would often sit on the pavement, late at night waiting for her to calm down and let me in again. We were all grieving for our father in different ways, but I could not empathize with her behavior, and it literally drove me away. I was unable to take care of her even for a few weeks because of her ‘irrational’ behavior. Thereafter the responsibility for my mother’s care reverted completely to my sister.

After a couple of days of living alone in our hometown in India (with hired help) my mother realised that she could not live on her own and was moved temporarily to a relative’s place until my sister could make the required visa and travel arrangements for her to move out of India and back to her home. The nature of my work at that time involved a lot of travel, often at short notice. I worked long hours, and lived in hotels and serviced apartments. There was no possibility of my taking my mother with me and giving her the care she needed, even if she agreed to let me care for her. I did, however, take on all the financial responsibility as my contribution towards her care.

My sister had a demanding job and her children were still in junior school when she took on the care of my mother. She juggled all of these, set aside her own differences and conflict with our mother, accepted my mother’s condition as a fact, and took care of her for seven years.

For the first couple of years after my father’s death, I avoided visiting my mother. This was because both my sister and I felt that my presence aggravated my mother’s symptoms, possibly due to our past strained and fractious relationship. My mother seemed to tense up just on seeing me. So for those first few years, my sister handled the actual care of my mother alone. These were also the most difficult years in terms of my mother’s strange behavior. There were incidents when my mother wandered off because she wanted to “go back home.” She also became progressively incontinent but refused to admit it. She refused to bathe or clean herself, and threw tantrums to eat. It was exhausting for my sister and the home help to trail my mother and clean after her and keep the home from smelling unpleasant. My sister always had to be on the guard in case my mother wandered off.

After around three years of my father’s death, within a short period of three months, my mother suddenly deteriorated physically in a very visible manner. She lost weight, started having problems walking and developed a shuffling gait. My mother had been prescribed anti-psychotics but my sister gradually discontinued them as she felt that they were not helping.

I finally visited my sister around that time, and was shocked to see the state of my mother. She looked incredibly small and shrunken and was barely mobile. At this time the behavioral symptoms she displayed included:

  • Depression.
  • Suspicion and delusions.
  • Increased bouts of sleep, especially in the daytime.
  • Poor appetite.
  • Very poor short-term memory.
  • Hallucinations, especially at night.
  • No inclination to communicate.
  • Unable to distinguish between reality and TV.
  • Generally helpless.

It became obvious to me then that caring for my mother was a very strenuous task. While I could not afford to stop working, I decided to commit to going over to my sister’s home at regular intervals and take over our mother’s care so that my sister could get a break. It was the first time in years, during this visit, that my mother and I did not have a row, and this helped me make the decision to take a more active role in my mother’s care. I also began to read up, research and understand the illness afflicting my mother.

Although my mother’s care was very challenging at times and she was becoming increasingly dependent on hands-on care, she also exhibited spells of lucidity and tender moments. I remember once, I noticed that her toenails needed trimming. I sat her down on the stairs and began cutting her nails, when she started crying and said “I can’t believe that I’ve reached this stage and that you have to do this for me. I used to do this for you not so long ago.” I found myself crying along with her and reassuring her that it was her time to be pampered.

Dementia Care Notes: Please describe the next phase of caregiving.

Nadira: After seven years of continuous caregiving, my sister finally said she needed a longer break. As it happened, I had just completed some very intense and stressful assignments and was planning to do something different for a while, and so I agreed to look after our mother in India for a few weeks to give my sister vacation time.

Those few weeks in India were an eye-opener for me. My mother seemed to be so much happier. Friends and family were dropping in to see her after many years; she struggled with remembering names but she knew most faces. She revelled in her new surroundings, loved the attention she got, and the fuss I made 24/7! The thought of making her go back to live with my sister, in a country and environment where her life was very different, seemed unfair at this stage of her life.

So my siblings and I discussed other possible care giving options. We decided to keep our mother static in our home town in India, and agreed that we would take turns to come down here to care for her. I thus set up a home that would be comfortable for caregiving, and large enough for all of us to have our own space. We also agreed that the bulk of the caregiving would be taken up by my brother as he had now retired and had fewer responsibilities. I redesigned my professional commitments so that I could get enough breaks to come to India and take over care whenever my brother needed to get back to his home country for a few weeks to manage his affairs.

This situation obviously led to terrible strife among us siblings, and was made worse by poor communication between us.

Unfortunately, after a few months my brother found he could not cope with the changes that this arrangement entailed. He changed his mind about his commitment. This meant I had to turn down a new assignment and return to India to again take charge of my mother’s care. My siblings suggested that we place my mother in an institution, but this was not an option for me. This situation obviously led to terrible strife among us siblings, and was made worse by poor communication between us.

In the last year, since I took charge of my mother’s care, I have educated myself further on dementia and caregiving. I have benefited from caregiver Support Group Meetings and have had the time to think of ways in which I can be more productive in the area of caregiving.

Dementia Care Notes: Please share how you got your mother diagnosed and how the family responded to it.

Nadira: In the early years my father knew that something was amiss ‘mentally’ with my mother but did not consider getting medical help as he assumed it was related to aging. However, he was quick in getting medical attention if it had something to do with her physical well-being.

Although we had our mother examined just after my father’s death, and we were told that there were ‘multi infarct lesions on the right side of her brain’, and that she had dementia, neither my sister nor I took the trouble of finding out more about this illness at that time. We just accepted it as a fact and cared for her to the best of our abilities. Seeking specialised medical attention or research on what could be done for her, did not occur to us for reasons I still don’t understand.

It was only when I took charge of my mother’s care again, seven years after the initial tests, that I took her for a proper check-up and diagnosis. We didn’t even have the original MRI and other medical records from previous tests to compare the changes that had taken place in the intervening years.

We are all highly educated in our family, intelligent, articulate and have very successful careers. There are enough books on the topics and information is so easily available on the internet. And yet, we didn’t bother to educate ourselves on our mother’s illness.

I often wonder why it took us so long to realize the consequences of her medical condition and why we did not research to see how best to provide effective care. We are all highly educated in our family, intelligent, articulate and have very successful careers. There are enough books on the topics and information is so easily available on the internet. And yet, we didn’t bother to educate ourselves on our mother’s illness.

Were we so caught up in our own lives that we neglected the fact that she suffered an illness and was not ‘just getting old’? All three of us lead very busy lives of our own in different parts of the world. Speaking for myself, it is possible that I did not want to face the fact that there was a problem that needed to be dealt with, thinking it would interfere in my life and add to the stress of my own high-profile career. And I have this ‘incredible’ ability to shut things out of my mind when I want to.

Or it may have been that the reason for our inability or unwillingness to see this as a medical condition was our impression that her behavior was a continuation of old characteristics, which were getting worse with age. But could it possibly be that we were in denial and not wanting to face up to the consequences of her medical condition? After all, our aunt (our mother’s older sister) had died of dementia. She had even wandered off from home and remained missing for almost two weeks, a very traumatic time for all of us.

Or perhaps was caused by a combination of all of the above factors.

Whatever it was, although our mother was being cared for to the best of our abilities, we were slow off the mark in caring for her in an informed manner. That’s for sure.

Dementia Care Notes: Please tell us about your family history of dementia.

Nadira: My aunt died of dementia well over a decade ago. I had seen her once in the early stages when she showed symptoms such as repeatedly asking the same question. Another instance comes to mind when she had come down to visit my mother and stay for a while. No sooner had her son left after dropping her off, she became insistent that she had to go back immediately although the plan was that she’d stay the week. The ruckus she caused did not leave my parents any option but to take her back immediately. The family would not talk of the problem except implying that “something was not right in her head”. Then, there was the incident of wandering I just mentioned earlier, when my aunt walked out of her home and was found in a pathetic state almost two weeks after she had gone missing. Even after this incident, no one talked about her medical condition. Next I remember being told that she was bed-ridden, and then that she’d passed away.

At a recent family gathering of my cousins when discussing my mother’s health, we realised there could have been other elders in the family who probably had dementia. We recalled family anecdotes narrated to us by our respective parents that indicated that our grandmother exhibited extreme forgetfulness (such as being unable to recognize even close relatives) and other typical dementia symptoms. However, no one had linked these stories together earlier on to realize that dementia could be running in the family.

Our recent awakening, though, has had some benefit. My uncle (my mother’s younger brother) who is around 80 years old and had been showing dementia symptoms for some years has been diagnosed recently, when he is still in a relatively early stage.

Given the family history, my sister and I are aware of the possibility of our developing dementia later in life. This is something we need to think about, and plan for, more seriously in the near future.

But even now, not all of us in the family understand dementia and how it affects behavior. My brother, for example, still feels that my mother’s current behavior is no different from what she showed fifty years ago–this is in spite of the fact that I have shared with him all my research on dementia.

Dementia Care Notes: You have recently consulted doctors for your mother. What is her current state, and what do doctors advise?

Nadira: My mother is currently wheelchair bound, and can only walk very short distances (like room to toilet) and only if supported. She is also incontinent. She is confused with languages, often speaking in one when she thinks she is speaking another. All her personal hygiene needs have to be taken care of by others.

However, she is still able to talk sensibly at times and has moments of lucidity, when she can recognize faces. On a good day we can play games, listen to music and sing along or read the newspapers (although she ends up reading the same line repeatedly!). She can still do some mental arithmetic and even tries to cheat when we play games :-). She eats well and loves her food.

My mother has always had mood swings. Every few weeks she has an episode of extreme agitation, often also showing delusions and hallucinations. Then, for some weeks, she is much calmer, even slipping into a depressive state where she cries and says despondent things like, “Why am I alive?”

We have seen this for years, but had never thought of investigating it or consulting doctors for it. After talking to doctors now, I realise that these mood-swings may not be because of dementia, but could be due to some form of clinical depression, and may be treatable.

We have seen this for years, but had never thought of investigating it or consulting doctors for it. After talking to doctors now, I realise that these mood-swings may not be because of dementia, but could be due to some form of clinical depression, and may be treatable. I am consulting doctors to see a way forward, because managing the mood swings would greatly improve my mother’s quality of life.

Dementia Care Notes: What is the current care arrangement for your mother?

Nadira: Currently, I am the primary caregiver. I have a paid attendant who attends to my mother’s food and hygiene. My mother has grown very fond of this girl. We never leave my mother alone in the apartment; if I need to go out, I do so only when the attendant is at home to keep an eye on my mother.

My mother has her own room and bathroom. The bed she sleeps on is very low so that she does not hurt herself in case she falls. There is protection on the floor in case she does fall. The bathroom has side rails to help her sit up straight; the toilet seat is padded for her comfort. The tiles were replaced to make them anti-skid. I have a large mirror in her room – this helps her to reorient herself, especially when she wakes up in the morning, to who she is and how old she is. There are a few pictures of the family in the room. At times these pictures have a negative effect so they are placed in a way that she can’t see them all the time.

As my mother spends a large portion of the day in bed, I have had an air mattress installed to prevent bed sores. I also use incontinence under-pads on the bed at night to minimize soiling of sheets and mattresses. Also used are incontinence “pants” instead of diapers as these are easier to put on. Besides, because they are pull-ups my mother assumes they are normal knickers. I used to import both the under-pads and pull-ups from overseas, but have now managed to source these in India. I have a supplier who delivers my monthly supplies to my home.

The most time consuming part of my mother’s care is batheing and getting her cleaned up every day. On good days we might spend about ½ an hour. On difficult days this could stretch to an hour or more. But once she is up, my mother is not very difficult to handle. She has a healthy appetite and eats two meals a day. Most often she manages to feed herself. She is not dextrous enough to eat with a spoon, so often she uses her fingers, which means we have to pay particular attention to hygiene. Wearing diapers can make one’s skin itchy and she scratches herself at night. So we make sure we wash her hands thoroughly and always keep her nails short.

Her diet is managed carefully to ensure that she does not suffer from bowel problems – she is given at least two kinds of fruit every day. She loves chocolates but this is rationed and given to her after a meal and any time before 5.00 pm. If she eats any sweets, especially chocolates in the evenings, it tends to keep her awake at night, so I avoid this as much as I can. Sometimes when she does not feel like having a second meal, she is given a glass of Ensure as a meal replacement.

Music works like magic most times to keep her occupied, calm and/or to de-stress her. She often sings along if she recognizes the song. When she occasionally asks after my siblings and she is in the right frame of mind we talk on Skype which she really enjoys. She thinks they are in the room with her! She can also occasionally converse on the telephone, but this is very rare. On a good day she enjoys having visitors and listening in to conversations even if she does not participate in them.

Dementia Care Notes: How has this past year of caregiving affected you?

Nadira: It has changed me in more ways than I thought possible.

I was always a very driven person, impatient to get on with what needed to be done, and short-tempered with people – a very hard nut to crack. Caregiving has made me discover a huge fund of patience within myself that I never knew existed! I have found myself capable of far more love and empathy than I thought I had.

For almost a year now, I have spent the bulk of my time caring for my mother, with my professional life on standby. While I have a small social circle of old school friends and extended family, and I am regular at the gym, I am living a very different life from what I was used to. For someone who worked 16 hour days 6 days a week and was on call 24/7. I now have a lot more time for myself to pursue other interests. I used to spend a lot of time travelling earlier; now I am losing air miles for not using them before they expire! The phone is more or less silent and there are only a few emails that need my urgent attention.

Yet, I can categorically say that I would not have it any other way. I am happy with what I am doing, and find the time I spend with my mother enriching.

Dementia Care Notes: What are your plans for the future?

Nadira: My current focus is on getting my mother as stable as possible, and using medical advice for components of her condition that are treatable. I have also set up a good, suitable environment of care.

My mother has a past history of “abandonment” and I would like her to always have a family member living with her. Hence, I am not considering placing her in a long-term stay facility as an option–I suspect placing her in such a facility would make her feel abandoned and therefore pull her down.

Once my mother is happier and better settled, I hope to work out an arrangement with my sister to take turns for care. I can then sign up for professional assignments for the months when my sister is handling care. The decision I take will be determined by my mother’s care situation, whether I do it myself or share it with my sister. My mother is my top priority right now.

Thank you for this detailed and frank interview, Nadira!

[This is part of the caregiver interviews on this site. View the list of all caregiver interviews].

Note: This is a personal interview. The situation and experiences described are specific to the interviewee, and the interview is not intended to be seen as a general representation of dementia patients, the families, the care environment, or professionals. Every patient, every family is different and so is their experience. Some names and details have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewee.

One thought on “My mother is my top priority now: a daughter describes how she became an informed and empathetic caregiver”

  1. this is an extremely useful site ,especially for a number of families.in our country we tend to keep the problems of care givers to ‘themselves.mainly because its culturally inappropriate to use the term’ care givers burden ‘.
    we at Alzheimer’s & related disorders society of india’ give lot of importance to support family carers.Would you like to share your experience with the readers of ”DEMENTIA NEWS” our quarterly news letter

Comments are closed.

Dementia Care Notes