Becoming the Parent of Your Parents

When my parents were in their early eighties, it became apparent to my brother and I that they could no longer conduct the routine activities of life. They no longer were able to decide which pieces of mail were bills and which pieces were solicitations for magazine subscriptions or credit cards. They were no longer able to make decisions which required assimilating new pieces of information and weighing the consequences of one choice versus another. They had difficulty in making doctor appointments and communicating to financial institutions. My father had lost all sense of time and place, often declaring that he was not at home in the house which he had occupied for the last 50 years. And yes, he sometimes disavowed that my mother was his wife. My brother and I cared for my parents, managing their affairs for four years before the death of my father. We paved our own path, having little guidance from the medical establishment. After my father's death, I concluded that the medical establishment has little knowledge of how to care for people with dementia. I wrote the stories of my care of my parents and their condition of Alzheimer's dementia in the hope that the nation will redirect its Alzheimer's funding from cure to care. The development of knowledge of caring of dementia patients is sorely lacking in our medical establishment and the knowledge of how to care for dementia patients is required for the peace of mind of their relatives, their children and the medical institutions of the country.