Dementia gosh I hope it doesn't come to this!

[Theas18]

Friend who I see every year has a demented mum in a home. She's older than my parents but not much.

Her latest problem is she's forgotten how to use her false teeth. Can't put them in, won't let others do it and probably can't work out why they should be in her mouth.

In someways it's a small thing. Soft diet is easily dealt with using gums, but it made me so sad ..

Dementia is very sad, but please do not say she is demented. She has a dreadful illness. The home will provide her with a soft diet that she can eat easily.

My mum has dementia, and has forgotten what her partial denture is for.

The saddest thing for me is when she looked at the Dr, and told them that she didn't know her own surname anymore. 45 years she's had that name, but its completely lost to her now

My mum died of dementia in September, she stopped eating and drinking so I understand how stressful this is. Eating and drinking often becomes a problem with dementia sufferers.

Hopefully the home are on the case with this and she's been referred to a dietician.

Lots of things that seem really important before dementia become less so once the dementia takes hold.

The important thing is that she is comfortable and able to take food, in whatever form. Having a foreign body in the mouth ( the dentures) is probably incomprehensible to her.

My mum does not eat anymore. Unless she swallows immediately she "finds" something in her mouth and spits it out. That may be what is to come for your friends mum, so the denture thing is nothing really in the big scheme of things. It's just another step in the process.