For a month or so Mom hasn't volunteered info about visual hallucinations, or maybe they've not been clear to her, but today, she saw a bunch of words: Baldwin earlier; and now, while watching but not really seeing the baseball game on TV: singleton, swindleton (!), yellow, red, mangos (without an E, I asked), greens, pansies, and she still sees Baldwin.
We've been working on vision recently. Did we reconnect something?
#stroke #dementia #ElderCare #OldBrains #CharlesBonnetSyndrome @caregivers

Morning activity: Investigating what Mom really sees, how much info she processes. Can she still read?
Flashcard > Response
Y > Irvin
N > (I forget what she said)
H > Dine, Sarabelt (she spelled out both these words for me)
G > Sandal, Saturate
V > Irvin
O > Goodman's (brandname, Passover foods)
W > Irvin, Withall, Sandwich
US > Sarah, Irvin
(Mom's mother’s name was Sarah, her brother was Irvin, also called Aryeh)

#Stroke #Dementia #Vision #ElderCare #Caregiving #OldBrains #Loss #HardTruths

3/4 BTW, I found a possible medical description of her behavior: Visual release hallucinations aka Charles Bonnet Syndrome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_release_hallucinations
The article doesn’t mention letters, but says the images are tiny. Today the letters were the size of the holes in a piece of matzo. Approx 1-2 mm in size. Another similarity: my mother has macular degeneration and is functionally blind in her left eye. (Right eye works.)
#CharlesBonnetSyndrome #AMD #OldOld #OldBrains #SeeingThings

2/4 She was pondering a piece of matzo and I asked if it was saying, “Eat me!”
She laughed, then squeaked out in a funny voice, “Eat me!”
I told her that I wasn’t worried about her seeing words in things, but if she started to hear objects talking to her, then I would worry. She laughed and said if that happened she probably wouldn’t tell me about it. And I said I hoped she would tell me about it, that I want to know, even if it makes me worry. #OldOld #OldBrains #SeeingThings #caregiving

I almost forgot – Mom's word-visions 1/4
Today’s words:
DEWBERRY (in the seam of a pillowcase),
COO (in a piece of matzo),
MOOSE (in a chocolate cookie).
Today she was seeing the word first, or extrapolating it from a few letters that were visible to her. She was doing this all day, but these were the only words she could piece together when encouraged.
I do love dewberry!
#OldOld #OldBrains #SeeingThings

My mom's "hidden" words of 12/28 and 12/29:
PROFIT
SASSAFRAS
The latter was supposedly to be located on her hands, or as she put it, referring to her fingers, "on these things." Not written there, but appearing there in some way.

She will also look for letters in the arrangement of crumbs, freckles/moles (I made the mistake of suggesting "connect the dots"), and the edging of sweater vests.

Later, she doesn't recall the word incidents.

#caregiving #OldOld #OldBrains #delusions #SeeingThings

She takes the notebook and pen, thinks a moment, begins writing:
-- No news is good news
Looks at me, smiles, looks back at the page, and adds:
!
Puts the notebook aside.
Later in the day, she comments that I’ve written the date and “No news is good news!” and I remind her that she actually wrote that sentence, not me.
(End of story, an observation follows.)
8/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

I come back to find her in her recliner inspecting a paper tissue (e.g., a kleenex, see pic). She is looking at the puckered edge.
P: What are you doing?
M: Trying to make out what’s written here.
P: I see only puckers.
M: No, there are letters, can you read what it says?
P: No. Do you have to blow your nose?
M: No.
P: Then maybe put that aside and write something in your notebook? 7/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld #SeeingThings

I find a half-size spiral notebook (no lack of paper in this house!), and she asks me to write down the date and day. I do. I suggest that rather than writing in it now, just out of bed, she wait til she’s dressed and in the living room. OK.
I go off to do other things around the house while she gets out of bed, etc.
(Purposely skipping the hands-on aspect of caregiving for these memory and hallucination posts.) 6/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

I ask if I should do something unusual every day so she'd have something notable to remember (and immediately regret it!). She laughs and says, "You suggested it, not me!" All this while lying in bed, with me sitting on a chair by the bed.* I suggest she could write in a journal every day, at least then she would see her own writing and know she was there and lived through it. 5/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

She doesn’t remember yesterday. TBH, nothing much happened yesterday, but I remind her of a few things: the TV show about Jim Gardner retiring, OK, she remembers that a little; latkes for dinner, mhm, maybe; lighting Hanukkah candles, I show her 5 fingers for the 5th light, and she says she remembers the papers on the table (Hanarot halalu, recited after the blessing, which I’ve printed out in large type). 4/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

She keeps repeating that she doesn’t remember what happened yesterday, doesn't recall getting into bed last night. It's a mind-bending conversation, but I think I might be getting it. I ask if she means that because she doesn’t remember going to bed and getting up on previous days, it seems like she hasn’t been in her bedroom in a long time? Yes, she thinks it could be something like that. 3/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

I point out that she has been “absent” in the sense that she’s been asleep, but she rejects the idea that she’s somewhere else in her dreams, because she doesn’t remember her dreams (she rarely did even before the memory loss). She says she feels like she's woken up in a familiar place, the furniture is familiar, but a place she hasn’t visited in a while. 2/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

Mom wakes up thinking out loud that it seems like a long time has passed that she hasn’t been here. I don’t understand and ask her to elaborate. She tries explaining that she doesn’t remember going to bed, doesn’t remember being in bed, although she knows she is in bed in her bedroom. The furniture is familiar but she feels like she hasn’t been here (in the bedroom) in a long time. "Does that make sense?" she asks.? 1/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld

4/4 (Sorry, I never know how prolific I'll wax with these mom word-lucination posts)
Anyway, wanted to explain "Friday" written on a coaster -- I wrote the days of the week on plastic lids, which I change daily for reference at the breakfast table. Also useful are pill boxes with separate compartments for each day of the week. If she sees the day's compartment is empty, she knows she took 'em and won't move on to take the next day's as well. #caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #ElderCare

4/4 (Sorry, I never know how prolific I'll wax with these mom word-lucination posts)
Anyway, wanted to explain "Friday" written on a coaster -- I wrote the days of the week on plastic lids, which I change daily for reference at the breakfast table. Also useful are pill boxes with separate compartments for each day of the week. If she sees the day's compartment is empty, she knows she took 'em and won't move on to take the next day's as well. #caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #ElderCare

She has short-term memory loss, so she might not have remembered the moment-ago conversations, but I guess the words stuck. Is this an old brain's way of making sense of random words floating around (in her case, literally, in the air around her)? She can carry on a conversation, but left alone, maybe her mind wanders and gets lost. Is it like with middle-age brains, when you walk into a room, then stand there having forgotten what you were looking for? Seems similar somehow.
#OldBrains +

Today it was (1) two times. First looking for FRIDAY. We'd just clarified what day it was. But when I showed her the coaster with “Friday” written on it,* she just laughed – that was not what she was looking for. She was looking for a hidden word. This evening after candle-lighting, where I was stressing about keeping her hair away from the flames, on her way back to her chair she was looking at the floor, or maybe in her walker basket, for the word HAIR.
#OldBrains #caregiving
+

Going back to my first post about this, 11/4/22 -- still a good description: I'm #caregiver for my 95-yo mom and recently she's been... seeing, looking for, finding... words.
Today I notice 4 variations: (1) looking for a specific "hidden" word; (2) seeing a word or a hint of a word and trying to discern it more clearly, with the word in mind; (3) seeing letters and trying to make out what word it is; (4) seeing a word plainly, but no one else sees it. #OldBrains #OldOld #hallucinations +

Me: Has it always been there?
Mom: Oh yeah. I just haven't looked for it in a long time.
Me: When was the last time you looked for it?
Mom: I don't know. Years and years ago. (looking)
Me: Well, that probably means it'll still be there when you look for it next time...
Mom: True.
Me: Which means... we could go into the other room... and do something else.
Mom: OK. Good idea.

She was still mumbling "decorate" as we left the room.
#OldOld #OldBrains #caregiving +