My FIL is in a care center. His "filter" for appropriate behavior seems to have deteriorated. He makes lewd comments, talks about sex all the time, and is angry and swears at everyone. It is enough to almost make you want to die from embarrassment. I feel for the staff. They get the brunt of his anger. He falls, get hurt, refuses to call for help and self transfers (not supposed to), uses the F word, sets off his alarms just because, refuses to eat, and is just being a royal pain for everyone. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do. He is already on an antidepressant but seems to just be miserable and wants to make everyone else miserable too. I am at my wits end.
A neuro-psychiatrist I was meeting with told me that dementia causes the ego curtain to lift. This, he explained, is what keeps all of us "in line" with not working out socially unacceptable things. It and its inhibitory effect either erode or dissipate with dementia. So we have people saying things and doing things that they never would have dreamed of before. I believe this is the "filtering" of which you speak.
You cope by listening everything you can about his kind of dementia and realizing that he can't do anything about his behavior, it's commonplace and it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Just someone being crude in and of itself is probably not enough to warrant medication adjustments. However if an anger becomes combative or sexuality becomes aggressive, that will be a different matter, and one that probably cannot be logically addressed behaviorally, but only by medication changes.
Just try to remember him as he was and think of who he is now as a completely different person because that is the reality of dementia.
See All Answers