Tonight Gene made a comment that I am not sure what to think. He was tired and wanted to go to bed. On the third trip to ask for help, turn off the TV, turn off the light and the third he wasn't sure what it was he wanted and we headed back down the hall to his room, he said, "kill me" and something about not being able to do anything. Does it get to the point they don't want to go on? I could never do anything, but I think I understand the feeling. I feel so sorry for him and I wish I could take it all away. I hate this AD!
I tuck him into bed and he is sleeping now. I feel a bubble bath coming on.
My husband said to us, his family, that he wanted to kill himself. This was during the first year after diagnosis. When he made the statement, he gestured as if stabbing himself with a knife. So I hid the knives and kept vigilant for awhile but that passed in a short time. I have never read of a ALzheimer's sufferer killing themselves so I really don't think they have the cognitive ability most of the time to complete their desire. I do think during times of lucidness they might want to die. However, I really don't know what my husband is aware of that he can't express but know he is not happy but sad most of the time. He can no longer talk. i too am sad most of the time.
Early in the diagnosis my husband said the same thing. In fact, during an appointment with our family doctor he asked her to" give me a pill to end it all if I can no longer care for myself". He knows she can't do this but then said it to her on another occasion. I do think this is a very common reaction to the devastating news but like you, carewife, I have never read of Alzheimer sufferers killing themselves. Sadly, when life is no longer worth living they have to linger on against their wishes. This is such a cruel disease.
Somehow, Gord has not heard them say that he has Alzheimers. However, as his mom deteriorated, Gord said many times that he would rather be dead than to be like her.
My husband, Paul has said this many, many times. I did hide the bullets to the one and only shot gun that he owns. However, he has access to all his meds. BUT, I have read that this is very, very uncommon, because they can't keep their thoughts in order long enough to carry out such a plan. They then forget that they thought it. Unlike other diseases, AD patients just don't kill themselves, from what I understand.
In Holland there is a famous case of an Alzheimer patient who decided at a very early stage that he would take his own life before the disease got too bad. A documentary by Nan Rosens was shown on public TV in which his wife and children talked both before and after his death; it was very hard on them, but his wife wanted to cooperate to fulfill his wishes. However he had to do everything himself to prevent anyone else from being accused of helping him (Euthanisia is legal here but only in certain carefully described conditions which he didn't meet; there was no legal way to prove that his suffering was bad enough.) And, he had to do it before the condition got so bad that he would simply forget or else lose the will power to do it. But he did. I haven't been able to find any English language documentation on this but I will keep looking. The Belgian author Hugo Claus was suffering from dementia when he committed suicide, but I don't know the details on that one.
My husband has threatened the same thing ever since diagnosis. He says he will not get like his mother and be a burden on me for years. Then he finally promised me he wouldn't do it if I would promise him to put him in a facility when he got too much to handle.
Strange, Before THE Diagnosis, Jim was depressed and anxious to the point of having suicidal tendencies and was hospitalized man times. Since the dx, he has never even mentioned suicide, weird. Final under: Strange but True.
John, too, has expressed to me many times that he wants to kill himself, die. Last night when he was talking that way, I just said, "oh, come on, now....how do you think you'd do that, anyhow?" (I have guns but don't keep the shells with them....they're not where John could get them). He said he wouldn't do anything to make a mess for me.....just take a bunch of pills.....I told him he wasn't taking anything that could hurt him if he took the whole bottle (don't know if this is true....jusst said that to diffuse his talk). He is taking Aricept, Namenda, Metropolol, Seraquel....any comments if too much or all of this could hurt him????? I don't know. Should I keep everything hidden?
When my father was dying of AD, my DH said he would never live like that; said he was a chem engr and knew what to do to make sure he never had to. Now that he's got dementia he doesn't even comprehend that he has it and wouldn't begin to know how to take his own life nor does the idea even occur to him. I find it rather ironic that so many people say they would take their life if ever they got this disease yet as other posters have said, actual dementia suicide is rare.
I believe I'd keep the Seroquel put away. HE is a doctor, and he knows what the drugs can do. I keep my husband's pills in a pill tray...fill several weeks of trays at a time, and only one tray is where he can find it. The rest of the bottles are in an art case in my closet. No sense in leaving them out in the open, right??
So, Seraquel can be a problem if he gets into it? Right now he depends on me for EVERYTHING, but I worry he'll have that 'lucid' moment and plan harm to himself.
any medication taken in quantity can cause irreversible harm. esp when the systems are already compromised. keep ALL meds even vitamins out of sight out of mind for peace of mind. divvi
Early on my DH said he wanted to kill himself. I still have the guns (kept well out of sight) and I locked all the amunition up in a heavy duty lock box. At this time I'm sure he would be incapable of doing it, and has long ago
(Oops, hit the wrong button) quit talking about it. I do keep all the prescriptions in a case in the back of the closet and fill a weekly day-by day pill holder. Not because I think he would purposely try to do anything, but because he is always into everything and I worry that he would take a bunch of pills not knowing what they were for or even what he was doing.
I had to start locking up his meds when, after I had them counted into a 7 day tray (4 boxes per day), he took one days' in reverse order, and then a couple days later he managed to take all of Weds.'s and Thurs.'s and start Fri."s betwen Weds. am and Thurs. by 11am. Trip to the ER in case of overdose.
Now, he couldn't tell you what he takes, how much or when. Nor could he tell you which pill does what. I'm just very glad he is excellent about taking them.
I would place my husband's pills in a seven day tray but a couple of times he took two days worth as he got his days mixed up. Now I have a seven day tray with am/pm for each day. Each day snaps out of the tray. So I have all his meds hidden from him and I place just the one day's pill case out for him. So far this has worked really well.
Yes, lock them up. DH has mixed them up, taken the wrong ones, etc. with the weekly tray. I now have them locked in a tool box in the pantry and get them out as needed, even though they are sorted in a pill tray. You can fill more than one at a time for time savings, and they do go in the dishwasher by the way.
One day my DH took his evening pills in the morning so, like Deb, I only put out the pills he takes at breakfast and keep the evening pills put away until time for him to take them. I keep pills for two weeks fixed in the trays in case something happens and someone else has to monitor his medicine. Our daughter knows where all his medications are.
Do any of you have this problem? I put out my husband's pills in the morning. Most of the time he will INSIST that he already took them. Finally, he'll sarcasticly say "Well, if it'll make you happy, I'll take them again."
Someone mentioned a few days ago about the husband dawdling over his pills, etc. My Mother did this and had for years. She would sit at the counter and look at every one she had in her allotment for the time and talk about what they were for etc. When I took over her meds she reallly complained her pills weren't right, I didn't know how to fix her meds, etc. One day I took a sheet of paper and glued each pill in a straight line down the middle of the page and wrote beside it the name, what it was for and how often she took it. I started with breakfast then noon, dinner and bedtime. This helped a lot with her confusion.
For two mornings my DH has taken the pills out of the tray I got for him and asked me if 5 is the right number. I don't know why he would think I put the wrong number of pills in each compartment. Of course I don't know why he thinks a lot of the things he does. He seems to have forgotten, for the moment, about writing the colour of each pill next to the name.
Carolyn, I had the opposite problem. Before I got the days of the week containers he would insist he hadn't taken his pills and want to take them again. Now when he believes he hasn't taken his pills I can show him the Monday AM container is empty and he'll agree that he took his pills. He keeps track of the days of the week by writing the day on a dry erase board on our fridge every morning.
Could you place his pills in a daily container, and when he says he took them for that day, you could show him he hadn't?
My DH was suicidal before he knew what was wrong with him. Oddly, when he realized that he had dementia and was going to die, he no longer wanted to die. I will say, however, that his ability to put those thoughts together was definitely affected by his dementia. We went through a program here in the Dallas area called the Road Adventure (like Dr. Phil's Pathways, but shorter and much less expensive). My DH found peace with his health and found peace within himself and with God. I was concerned that he might not be able to actually go through the program, but it is an experiential program (no notes, no lectures, etc.) and he got a lot out of the experience. The greatest thing he got out of the experience is acceptance and love. If any of you are in the Dallas area, I strongly recommend the Road Adventure for you and, where possible, your loved ones. Before going, my DH was so depressed that I was concerned about him. I am still concerned about him, but at a different level than before. I know that, in his heart, he is at peace with God.
One of the hard things is that my DH is 51 (I am 46) so we certainly thought we would have much more time together. We have been married for 28 (almost 29) years, but that is still not long enough.
At this point we just fill the 7 day organizers (3 of them at a time) and most days he takes the morning pills on his own. We each take an evening pill at 5, and I just hand him his when I take mine, but today he saw me going for them and got up and joined me at the refrigerator door where we get the water. So far the pills are one of the things he can still do for himself. I check every day to make sure he has taken the pills, but only one days worth. He can still fill they organizers himself, but one of the meds is a bit weird and the exact number of pills each week keeps changing, so I always sit with him.
I have them in the 7 day organizers and I keep them coordinated to the day of the week, too. I dump the days worth into a little cup (like the kind nyquil came in) and he carefully counts them (repeatedly) and then puts them all in his mouth at once; they're quite small. Drinks his milk, takes two or three breaths and says "where are my pills?"
I put Clyde's in a weekly organizer and at each meal I have to actually put them in his mouth and hand him a glass of water to drink. Sometimes he manages to drink the water without swallowing the pills. I need to watch closely. Sometimes we go through 2 or 3 small glasses of water before he actually swallows them. One of the capsules (which I now break open and mix with this food) managed to stay in his mouth. I notices a little later that he was puffing "smoke" out of his mouth. Lesson learned. :-)
I grind all of DW's pills and mix them with applesauce morning and night. She would hold the pills in her mouth and swallow water around them. She does OK with eating the apple sauce (most of the time!!!!)
Marsh, all I can say is it is a good thing she has lost her tastebuds. I got some of that second hand through a kiss one night and it was awful...... They may not know the difference but I certainly did.
I used to put my DH's in a shot glass he liked and leave them on the counter for him. He did pretty good about taking them. I only ran into a problem when the doctor wanted him to take something more than once a day.
gmaewok - guess if it takes 2 or 3 glasses of water to get them down, that is a way to get their water intake done. One thing with capsules (don't buy hard pill supplements) is that if you burp not long after you can get that 'smoke cloud' coming out. Have had that happen more than a few times. So swallowing them is no guarantee it won't happen.