A bit more advice needed.

[Imtoooldforallthis]

I've posted on here about my mum and had some great advice. She is 82, still living independently but her health is not good and she has dementia. At the moment I don't do any housework for her as I feel she needs to have something to do. I do help with all her paperwork etc. I see her everyday for half an hour or so and a cuppa, she also comes to ours at least once a week for a meal. Or trips out. Now the bits I'm struggling with. Firstly she is a keen gardener and that is all she talks about repeatedly and constantly, I try my hardest to show interest but it drives me mad so much so I can barely spend any time with her, although I do realise she has nothing alse to talk about. The other thing she does is comment on everything I buy, so if she comes to my house she will say how much nicer everything I have, do or wear is much nicer than she has it, it's hard to describe but we used to enjoy a trip around the shops, but it is so depressing. Has anyone else had the same?

You just have to zen into it. I have the same conversations, over and over, with my two relations who have dementia.

She won't change, so you'll have to! You just have to stop taking things personally, I found.

Yeah I guess so, I feel awful about it but there is no pleasure for either of us anymore.

Yes, just grit your teeth and bear it, if it’s only half an hour a day. I’ve been in the same position and it’s easy to forget that she’s not doing it on purpose.

My mum’s dementia eventually took away her ability to speak at all, and I missed her rabbiting on about the same things over and over again.

What about getting as gardener to help her? With the remit to talk to her as much as garden?
Age uk used to offer a service in some areas?

Has she got attendance allowance? Would help pay got a gardener.
Non means tested. Get help from cab/ age uk/ carers uk to complete.

Yes she has attendance allowance, she had someone to look after her small lawn but didn't like what they did.

I compare it to going down the rabbit hole.

My Mum's in a home & after I visit her I sit in the car listening to the radio for 5-10mins until I'm back in the real world once more. Ironically given Mum's condition, it feels like I'm the one having to set my brain back to normal after a visit.

Before her going in the home, we would have the same bloody conversations again & again. It was easier if we went somewhere - even in the garden where I could distract her from the same old, same old. Watching tv was another thing - again all about distraction.

Just go with how she takes the conversation, lots of nodding & hmmm-ing, 'really?', 'what's that then?', 'crikey, I didn't know that', etc.

It is incredibly upsetting & very frustrating watching a loved one decline with dementia. It's a shitty illness. Go easy on yourself. Take care

I used to refer to it as 'smile and wave'. My interest in what the woman in Waitroses grandson had done was non existant, but my dads world was so small that he could only relate to things real to him iyswim, and nothing more complex or remote (like my job which couldn't be seen). I did manage to divert him onto my animals - taking the phone out to listen to the chickens was popular! Maybe if you got some plant cataloges or garden magazines you could look at them together, ask her for advice on what to plant in a tricky area of your garden (even if you have no intention at all of doing anything) and at least it would be something different to talk about

Skills are lost much later than biographical memory, so ask her advice on things she can still do eg cooking - recipes - or books or cleaning, whatever she did in her prime.

It's easier to let things wash over you if you're doing something else. I crochet lace when my father talks to me, keeps the tedium away, but leaves enough of my brain free to give the appropriate answer at the right point.