Hello everyone. My name is Jen and I live in Houston, Texas. I just moved back home from Maryland because my Grandmother has Alzheimer's and I figured my mother, as the primary caregiver, would need help soon.

As for Gran herself, she was diagnosed with AD about four years ago. At this point I'd guess she was stage 3, though i'm not positive about that. She remembers people close to her but has extreme difficulty communicating... can't think of words, etc. She can no longer cook, sew, paint or do any of the things she used to enjoy because her mind just doesn't remember how. She does things like put styrofoam containers in the microwave, cannot recall simple things like how to turn the television on.

Anyway... I'm sure you folks here understand where I'm coming from. There is no doubt that she has it and no doubt that she will get worse. Physically she is doing pretty well... it's the mental part that isn't working anymore.

I am an only-child and my uncle had no children so I am also the only grandchild... I am very close to my grandmother. One of the reasons I moved back home was not only to help Mom but to spend time with Gran before the disease takes her.

I never dreamed of how hard this would be. While Gran has her "good days", she mostly has bad days now. She has become someone I am completely unfamiliar with. While she cannot remember things, she still THINKS she can remember things. Example: When she doesn't know where a location is or where something is in the grocery store, she says "They moved the road" or "They changed everything up in this grocery store." She absolutely refuses to listen to you about the most simplest things.

I guess what I'm looking for here is not only support, but any suggestions on how to handle this. I want to get Gran out of the house... take her places... so that her mind can be somewhat stimulated and she's not just sitting in the house waiting to die. Yet when we go somewhere sometimes it's a pure nightmare. She gets combative if she tells you that you need to turn right here, but you KNOW that you need to turn left. Or she'll produce her social security card for ID instead of her driver's license (well, her state ID, she doesn't drive anymore) and insist to the clerk that it's what they've always taken. She won't listen when you try to explain things to her and if you get insistant, she gets mean, sometimes even has what we've begun referring to as a "fit". She'll cuss, then cry and say things like "I wish I were dead."

It's a really really hard situation for anyone who tries to take her anywhere. Yet we don't want to sequester her in her home. She constantly complains about not getting to go anywhere but she won't get out of bed early enough to go places. She doesn't seem to "wake up" and get moving until late in the afternoon. She also has begun to make things up in her head. If she gets anxious or stressed during an outing when you are trying to help her or explain something to her, she'll sometimes get very upset and accuse you of yelling at her or even pushing her. We've NEVER done this and we never will so as you can imagine, it's extremely upsetting.

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to give a clear background.

Any advice or suggestions would be very helpful. I don't know what to do. Should I treat her as a child? Scold her when she acts badly? She acts like a child most of the time now yet she seems "together enough" to be pissed off when we treat her like one. It's not that we want to treat her like one, it's simply that we don't know how else to respond to her when she acts like this.

Please help.