Spent some time with a stranger with no memory

[Pekka]

walked home from work and some old guy walks up to me "can you tell me where this place for old people is". He told me the wrong address, so I we went to a wrong place. He had dementia. It was obvious to me I could not leave him alone with "good luck!" so I took him to another place I thought he might mean. Wrong, again.

So finally we got to the right place, after 30 minutes of random walking in downtown, and he says, "I'm disoriented. I want to go home." We just got here!!! So... "do you remember where you live?", I asked. "Can you come along for a while, I'm not sure".

So I went. He almost walked under a bus, so again I couldn't just leave him there. Something might happen. We finally got to his place and I would not go in, he was 100 % positive he is home, good enough for me.

Was he a perv, checking out my butt or really an old person with dementia?

[Dinner]

My guess is he just had dementia and wasn't a perv. When I was in high school my work was down the block from an old folks home where lots of the people had dementia yet some how they frequently managed to sneak out where they'd wander into the street or walk into the store asking if anyone knew where they lived. We'd tell them yes and walk them back to the old folks home where the nurses would take care of them. Still, it happened often enough that the home had each of them wear a metal bracelet on their wrists with their name, address, and the phone number of the retirement community on it. Dementia is a pretty sad way to go in your old age; other wise intelligent and accomplished people find themselves with the minds of a small child.

[kittenOFchaos]

My guess is he just had dementia and wasn't a perv. When I was in high school my work was down the block from an old folks home where lots of the people had dementia yet some how they frequently managed to sneak out where they'd wander into the street or walk into the store asking if anyone knew where they lived. We'd tell them yes and walk them back to the old folks home where the nurses would take care of them. Still, it happened often enough that the home had each of them wear a metal bracelet on their wrists with their name, address, and the phone number of the retirement community on it. Dementia is a pretty sad way to go in your old age; other wise intelligent and accomplished people find themselves with the minds of a small child.

Jeez Oerdin, that is almost touching.

As a teenager I helped an old man get on a bus to London - it was probably not the right thing to do.

[Berzerker]

good job Pekka

a new drug is coming out that supposedly reduces the plaque in the brains of alzheimers, I'll bet it'll have applications beyond that

[Guynemer]

Alzheimer's is probably the most evil disease known to man.

[EPW]

My Grandfather had it before he died; it was awful.

[Hauldren Collider]

Alzheimer's is probably the most evil disease known to man.

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia

[Berzerker]

wow, never heard of it but sounds like a speed binge that never ends

well, ends with death and its probably welcome at that point

[Hauldren Collider]

It's practically nonexistant. It only affects like 100 people. But yeah, I'd probably commit suicide if diagnosed with it.

[DaShi]

I'm pretty sure I have that. I never sleep. Or so I'm told when people explain what sleep is to me.

[Pekka]

Yeah he was disoriented the whole time when we tried to find the place.

A funny thing happened... I asked an old guy about where this guy might want to go - simply because he was old too and he wanted to go "where other old people go". He actually gave us the missing clue so we started to go to the right direction, but before that they had a chat, this guy had Parkinson's. He had difficulties of walking (though I didn't notice) and his right side was getting paralyzed (couldn't notice that either but he was a little shaky so I take his word).

So there I was, with two guys, one with Parkinson's, one with fairly severe dementia, both sort of disoriented. The guy with Parkinson's was much sharper though. it was interesting to step into the world of old people with memory/etc issues, the center for old people where we finally went (before he wanted to go home) was filled with people like him so all I saw was older disoriented people, talked to them and saw that they have their own world. They talk to each other in a different way and sort of "ahh you are old, you don't remember much, you are one of us!" and you're sort of in right away. I found it heartening. It really was an interesting experience. Like a dimension you get to go only if you are one of them. They have a way of understanding each other, related to getting old and forgetting things and how painful it can be, and the fast/slow corruption of the brain in general.

Someone should make a documentary about it. Not about dementia or Parkinson's (I'm sure those exist) but about the connection these old people have and the way they navigate in the modern world.

I bet they are all faking it though, getting all that old people free money....

[dannubis]

The wife and I once had a similar experience. An old lady asked us if we knew where she lived late one evening. It turned out she was 15 kms away from her home (luckily she had a cell phone and we could call her grand daughter). I took her home and chatted a bit with the family. 3 weeks later they let me know the old lady died.

If I reach the point were I have to go and tell the story, I really hope I can go in good mental health.

[Uncle Sparky]

The mind is a strange thing. My mother had dementia in the last couple of years of her life. A couple of months before she died, my nephew Keith visited her in her care unit with his wife and infant daughter. Early in the visit my mother apologized to Keith, saying that she had spent the morning looking all over the house for her cheque book, because she wanted to give Keith some money for Chloe's birthday. My mother didn't know where she was, and was beyond keeping calenders or reading newspapers, but new it was her great granddaughter's 1st birthday.

I'm guessing many posters here are bilingual or multilingual. Congrats. Canadian research shows if you do develop dementia, your cognative abilities will deteriorate much slower than unilignual people.

[Pekka]

dannubis, scary, isn't it? The scary part is for me that there's bunch of a-holes out there, and so these people are in complete mercy of them. Fortunately most people would not let them wander around alone and most people would help them without an agenda. I guess it would be inside all of us to recognize that state, and that it will hit many of us later on so better do the right thing now so perhaps the stranger we face will help us as well.

Uncle Sparky, weird... why do people remember certain things and some things are completely beyond reach, I have no idea. How did she remember it was her b-day, especially the first one? It's obviously important to her but so are many other things she must have forgotten at that point. And it might be difficult to remember the very first b-day anyway, it hasn't been any kind of tradition so far. I'm sure we can map the brain at some point even further and thoroughly, but can we ever unlock mysteries such as this one? I have no idea.

[Pekka]

Weirdness continues

Wanted to share this with you.

So today I went to our grocery store with the kid and as we were waiting in line for our turn to pay, this old lady in front of us looks at me and says "go ahead, you have less than me". I said no I can't, I'm in no hurry, I insist. So she said no, she's in no hurry and I should take her place.

I realize it's a coincidence. This has never happened to me before, though I know people give up their places sometimes in situations like this. But I couldn't help but feel that it was connected to the event before somehow. In less than 24 hours and old person wants me to save time and is nice to me. I was in no hurry nor did I look like I was.

I think I need to be nice to strangers more.