Coping with right wing rants

[cansu]

Visiting my mother is always tricky as it can often involve listening to long rants about lazy benefit scroungers, hooligans etc. I try to steer the conversation away rather than get involved in rows. My mother is suffering with what is likely the beginning of alzheimers or dementia. It is hard work. She also has very poor short term memory. Ant tips for how to keep conversation going. I can't ask about what happened yesterday etc as she cannot remember.

For my DMIL this was one of the first signs that she was deteriorating with Dementia. Has she been to the GP about her "forgetfulness"?

See if you can distract her from ranting by showing her photos or videos. Perhaps some old comedy clips that might change her mood.

I just had to accept that conversations would be repetitious.

I can't ask about what happened yesterday etc as she cannot remember. Tell her what you did yesterday. Tell her how something you saw today reminded you of something nice you and she did together (but avoid the words do you remember? - that’s setting her up to “fail”). Tell her what’s happening around town, whether the Christmas decorations are any good this year, the traffic jams from the latest roadworks etc. Maybe be selective on this one-so as not to trigger a rant.

Even without a diagnosis I am pretty sure your DMIL has dementia. We were in a similar situation with my DMIL, who is now late stages with 24 hour care. An early sign in hindsight was her becoming openly racist and downright upset and tearful about things like colour blind casting in classic drama productions. This was shocking to DH me and completely out of character, she was always very tolerant before the illness. DH read the book Contented Dementia by Oliver James and started to adapt the idea of 'love lies', essentially not questioning what the ill person says because it's pointless and will only drive you to despair. Just accept and try to distract, ie let's have a cup of tea, oh look at those lovely
flowers.
I feel for you, it's a brutal illness and it took chunks out of us, especially as she stopped eating and drinking and becoming incontinent in a crumbling house 1.5 hours from us. I pushed for carers but it was an uphill struggle as her other children were more or less in denial. Try to get a POA and a diagnosis, this forum is fantastic and www.alzheimers.org.uk is also helpful.