Alzheimer's Society Dementia Advert

I hear people saying “I could never put my Mum in a home” but a really good home like my Mum spent her last 3 years in ensures her safety, being kept clean and well fed and having more company.

It also means that you can get a bit of time to yourself although often that means paying their bills, ordering new clothes, making appointments for them etc.

I went every other day to see my Mum and sat in the courtyard garden with her, took her out in my car, pushed her out in the wheelchair, had lunch with her. In the final few months I went every day.

Placing a loved one in a home does NOT mean deserting them. I had already looked after my Mum for 14 years and there was no way I could have lifted her, bathed her and kept her safe like the staff did. My back was already suffering! They have all the proper gear there and are trained in lifting, moving etc. I don’t know if people are still thinking that care homes are like prisons but Mum’s was more like a hotel. 🙂

The more awareness that is raised about dementia the better. It might not reduce people's fears about it but it will, I hope, help them understand more and sympathise more with the struggles of patients who have dementia and their carers.

This advert doesn’t offend me at all. My Mum suffered from dementia, for ten gruelling years, from early days when she was scared as she knew. Through anti psychotic drugs to allow her some rest from relentless pacing, to the final indignity of double incontinence, immobile and uncommunicative in a bed for her last few years.
Anything that shows the possible reality and raises money for research has my support.

Whiff, I understand exactly what you are saying because I have been through it twice.

It certainly has taken a toll on my health because it was so stressful but whilst you are in the thick of it you just get on with it. My Mum has been in a home for about 2 years and it is only now she is in a good one that I am starting to decompress. I am lucky that I have a husband who has always been supported and is now letting me have some freedom to just do what I want to do so that I feel as if I have my life back. However, when I visit the home regularly, there is a person sitting there who for 95% of the time is just not my Mother. When I look at photos of her then and now, the difference is amazing. You don't need to be told what is wrong with her.
That said, I would do it all over again because I can't imagine doing anything different. My grandfather had lived a difficult life with facial scarring which set him apart, had been a bit of a scoundrel with my grandmother and mother but had helped me when I needed it so I wanted to repay that. My mother, despite her failings, was the only constant in my life and helped me with ICSI so I could have my beloved son for which I was so grateful that I wanted to return that in spades. My only resentment in the worst times was not against them, it was for the family members who had also received a lot of help but wouldn't lift a finger but worried about their inheritance. I have told my children that I want them to put me in a home if I get dementia. I don't want their lives to taken up with caring for me but I would appreciate them visiting me. I also intend to write my own funeral speech whilst I am not affected so that the last words they hear from me is the true me.

Would you do it all over again, Whiff?

kittylester

And terrifying for those newly diagnosed and for their carers.

I help run Carer Learning courses for people caring for those recently diagnosed with a dementia, for those who are newly post diagnosis, those waiting for diagnosis and for those who have been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment - which has a very high incidence of developing into dementia.

How awful must they feel having that thrust at them.

'Living with dementia' is the preferred term nowadays rather than 'sufferer'.

"living with dementia" is woke terminology to underestimate the suffering that people affected by dementia and their carers, family and friends.
Noone is living with dementia they are dying from it. It's a killer. It takes away your mind, your motor skills and your independence

My parents both had dementia, and I have had friends and neighbours over the years who had and still have it now.

Of the people I have known with dementia some like my mum deteriorated horribly fast, completely changing character from kind to aggressive, losing speech and comprehension with no recall of the past or present and are unable to recognise any close family or even themselves.

Others who I think of as the luckier ones are quiet, appear calm and peaceful, are gently confused but often smiling and sometimes recognise their loved ones until the end.

Like breast cancer , there are many different forms of how the same diseases play out.

Which ever way it pans out, it is a cruel disease and needs much more research in order to find a treatment.

I absolutely understand your experience (with some differences, as every experience is unique of course). Dementia very definitely can affect the body - my mum also forgot how to walk, how to sit and basically became a baby again. She spent the last months of her life in a constant state of terror, which was agony to witness. We were "lucky" in that we found a wonderful caring, loving and understanding Nursing Home, who not only cared and loved her, but did the same for us as her family. Dementia is horrible. Like the previous poster, I also volunteer with people living with dementia and their carers and I know that there is no easy way of dealing with it. This portrayal is horrific but, sadly, can be all too accurate. Sending love and sympathy to all those dealing with it, in all its forms.

icanhandthemback that advert is tame to the reality of looking after someone with dementia 24/7. My mom lived with me for the last 18 months of her life when I couldn't trust her to look after herself. I would have had her sooner but my brother sided with mom. He regrets it now and the fact he didn't help me.

Dementia took everything from my mom but the only things she keep strangely was the fact she loved me but thought I was her mom and she never wet or soiled herself as she always knew she needed the commode. From when she started to live with me she insisted on wearing a pad but it was only like a thick Tena lady. Only time it was wet was when she died and her bladder voided.

The truth about looking after someone with dementia or Alzheimer's people wouldn't want to know. My mom died long before her body and the last 4 months of her life was a living hell as she became violent. But it was out of fear she didn't know who she was ,where and who I was . Thought I was her mom I used to tell her I was her daughter and she would say I know mom and I love you.

Mom had breast cancer and had her second mastectomy and lymph nodes removed when she was 86. In someways I wish it had been terminal but then she wouldn't have seen my son and brother get married. My daughter was already married and got to held her first great grandson.

While she could still do things like wash even though she forgot how I showed her as I thought it was important she does things. She had always brushed her teeth 3 times a day. Many times she swallowed the toothpaste but said she had minty fresh insides.

I got attacked multi times a day and it's amazing how much strength a little woman who weight 6st has when she frightened. I used to try and wrap the duvet round her and hold her until she had exhausted herself and went to sleep . I bear the scars to this day . But I couldn't put my mom in a home . But am proud of the fact when my mom died she didn't have a sore on her body I made sure to look after her skin . And when it went paper thin covered it with light dressing so it didn't tear.

I had a pressure mattress and blown up booties from from district nurse. And a bed bar with I padded with pillows so mom won't get hurt. But one day she moved a pillow and deliberately hit her head on it saying I did it and she was going to tell the doctor and I would go to jail. After bathing it she went to sleep and woke up happy and we talked .

That's how it was she would sleep and I never knew how she would wake up. She did some awful things and disgusting things but it wasn't my mom . Mom had a died and this person appeared . But I still loved my mom but not what the dementia had done to her.

The day mom started dieing her breathing was awful. She used the commode at 5am and the doctor came at lunchtime . I said mom's dieing and the doctor said yes and gave me a prescription for end of life drugs. My nephew fetched them from the chemist by the hospice as they always stocked them . Mom never had any pain from the cancer until 5.30pm the district nurse came quickly and gave her a shot of morphine. My children had come down but they didn't want to see mom and I said she wouldn't you to. Just remember her as she was . My daughter said I can't stay in the house while nan died. She had seen her dad died . Told her it was fine and told my son to go too the hotel but he stayed.

I went into mom every 10 mins I couldn't stay with her all the time like I did with my husband. Went into her 10 mins past midnight and told her dad was waiting for her as she always believed they would be together again . Dad had died 10 years before. When I went in at 20 past mom had died aged 90.

Took me a year not to think of the violence and remember my mom before she had dementia. I was alone. Onky person who understood was my nephew who had looked after his nan with Alzheimer's . My brother didn't want him to as his ex wife and her sister should have done it. After 2 years they put her in a home . My nephew and his sisters visited more than her own daughter's.

It's only after Mon died did I realise what it cost me healthwise . But I did everything for my mom even gave her injections. But I did what I did because of love . But I never want my daughter to go through what I did. I am doing everything I can to keep my mind and body active. I was born disabled with a hole in my heart . First sign I am forgetting more than I do already due to my disability. I will go into a home . But hopefully I die before I get to that stage but not for another 20 years.

Like I said that advert is tame to the reality of dementia and Alzheimer's. And feel for everyone who has a loved one with it . 💐

After we’d had FiL (with dementia) living with us for over a year, it became unsustainable (up and down, banging and shouting at night, violent rages, etc.) we found a very nice care home for him.

His younger sister, who lived in a seaside town with lots of retirees and care homes, while berating us soundly (particularly me, who was doing 99% of it) for not wanting to keep him at home) insisted on a care home near her. And as it happened, the best home we found was a very short walk from her flat.

Within just a few weeks of him moving, I would have her on the phone wailing that he was coming round every afternoon and she couldn’t cope! ‘He paces constantly up and down! He won’t let me watch Countdown!’

‘So perhaps you now have some very small idea of what it was like for me, all day and all night!’ said I.

She did very grudgingly admit that she’d been wrong to accuse us (particularly me) of being selfish and uncaring.

So TBH if a hard-hitting ad gives people like her a better idea of the realities, I’m all for it. Because so many people who have eventually gone down the care home route with a relative (usually after much heart-searching) have been accused by people who haven’t a clue, of being selfish and uncaring.

I used to think that if I heard one more time the pious comment that ‘in other countries people look after their own’ I would honestly do the person a mischief.

I, too, have experience of a mother with Alzheimer's disease. And, I still say that this ad is step too far.

I am very cross about this advert. My Father has dementia and my Mum has to distract my Dad when it comes on. Did they not think about the effect it would have on those with this disease? Cruel and heartless, to say the least!

I appreciate what you're saying, kittylester, but at the end of the day, dementia is terrifying and there's no point in trying to sugar coat that. It's clear from this thread that many of us have had first hand experience of caring for a loved one with dementia and seeing them actually suffer from it - especially in the later stages.

And terrifying for those newly diagnosed and for their carers.

I help run Carer Learning courses for people caring for those recently diagnosed with a dementia, for those who are newly post diagnosis, those waiting for diagnosis and for those who have been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment - which has a very high incidence of developing into dementia.

How awful must they feel having that thrust at them.

'Living with dementia' is the preferred term nowadays rather than 'sufferer'.

I’ve just watched the ad and think that the title, The Long Goodbye, is very apt. I’ve been a ‘dementia friend’ for about ten years now and have attended conferences, seminars and training days where carers and people with dementia have expressed the wish that more people understood the reality of the illness. With a beloved relative currently in the grip of this disease I’m happy for there to be as much publicity as possible if it increases knowledge and generates additional funds.

kittylester

^The advert was co-produced with dementia sufferers. Don't deny them their voice^

As I said in my post - the petition to have it removed was started by a person living with dementia.

People living with dementia are not, nowadays, described as suffering from dementia - the term is living with.

I can only find one petition online. There is no suggestion that the person who started it is living with has dementia.

kittylester

That does not mean it is right to scare the living daylights out of the recently diagnosesd and their carers.

It's an absolutely terrifying disease, denying that serves no purpose. Both sufferers (l make no apology for the use of that term despite your patronising protestation) and carers should be aware of what they have to deal with. It doesn't get better, just far, far worse. Prettying it up is denial, pointless.

Well I can assure those people that my lovely mother and my lovely Father were suffering from dementia, not living with it As were all of us, their family, and their friends.

That does not mean it is right to scare the living daylights out of the recently diagnosesd and their carers.

I'm sorry, Kittylester, but there comes a point in most dementia patients' lives when they certainly aren't living, they are surviving. Anybody with a progressive, degenerative illness knows that they are likely to be facing a horrible future but with funding for research, there could be a breakthrough which will help delay or turn back that projection for the future.
Without the considerable research funds for cancer, many people wouldn't have hope for remission like they do today. Similarly with Multiple Sclerosis where the outlook was very bleak; research has provided more treatments to help keep people active.

Oh, thank you.

We can only hope and pray that some good comes from it,
Good to see you back Miss A.💐

At one time people wouldn't even say the word "cancer"

I hope the alzheimer's ad helps bring it out into the open, if it continues to be shown, that is.

Yes Miss A but MacMillan ads are accepted as portraying the very cruel illness cancer is and accepted by the public
.

Alzhimers ads don’t get the same respect. But this one might. Hard though it to watch it’s realistic.

I lost family to cancer so I know the pain and suffering involved.

I also know the support given to the patient and the family through MacMillan or Marie Currie Differs very much from the Alzhimers patient.

Simply because the boots on the ground don’t exist.

It's much the same as the Macmillan ads, I suppose.

They are fairly hard hitting.

I have work volunteering for the Alzheimer's Society - for many years. I think the video is spot on !! So often Dementia is portrayed in a very positive way , that is all well and good to a certain extent. However the reality is devastating for the person diognosed with dementia and importantly those who are in a caring role. My mother was never diognosed but most definitely had dementia in her final years - my dear husband has recently been diognosed and I fear for our future. Depressing as the video is it does not make me feel upset , angry or depressed - as I already know the reality of dementia. No advert / video can possibly make me feel any worse! It's a scary picture of what is to come but it is reality and
I am only already too aware of that. In the meantime we love and live as well as possible, enjoy the positives and while I know what is in the bag I don't dwell on it . My DH is taking medication and is convinced this will be very beneficial - he is not as clued up as me on Alzheimer's Disease and I am grateful for that. I recognize the video may be very traumatic for some people but for me it does not teach me anything I don't know! My opinion is from a carers point of view I do think it would be traumatic for my DH to see this video - I will most certainly ensure he does not see it! So I have mixed views about it .