Dude, Where's My Car?

Well, I haven't posted anything in a while. Not a whole lot of new information other than on March 3, 2010 we moved my mother-in-law into our home. As I mentioned before, she was diagnosed two years ago with Frontotemporal Dementia. According to the Mayo Clinic, it is defined as:
Frontotemporal dementia (frontotemporal lobar degeneration) is an umbrella term for a diverse group of uncommon disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain — the areas generally associated with personality, behavior and language.

In frontal temporal dementia, portions of these lobes atrophy, or shrink. Signs and symptoms vary, depending upon the portion of the brain affected. Some people with frontotemporal dementia undergo dramatic changes in their personality and become socially inappropriate, impulsive or emotionally blunted, while others lose the ability to use and understand language.

Frontotemporal dementia is often misdiagnosed as a psychiatric problem or as Alzheimer's disease. But frontotemporal dementia tends to occur at a younger age than does Alzheimer's disease, typically between the ages of 40 and 70.

She has probably suffered from this disease since she was in her 50's but her symptoms were mistaken for early signs of Alzheimer's which her mother had. Had someone only known!

As I mentioned, she moved into our home last week and the challenges are many. But, the good side of all of this is that it allows us to really get a feel for her condition. The difficult part of the disease is that you have a person who physically can do many things but mentally can not remember things from one second to the next.

Today we will test her ability to follow directions if you write it down for her. She wants to help around the house which she is still capable of doing but because she can't remember directions verbally we thought we would write it down for her and see if she can complete the task. One task she has mastered is taking clothes out of the dryer and folding them. It is reminiscent of Pavlov's classical conditioning experiment where you ring a bell and the dog knows its time to eat. In this situation the dryer buzzer goes off and she knows she needs to get the clothes out and fold them.

But the one challenge we have not mastered yet is how to deal with her obsession wth her car. She continually asks where her car is......thus, the question of the day is....."Dude, where's my car?"