Note: This post is a part of a series detailing my family's fight with dementia and elder abuse.
It took a long time for my family to recognize the changes that were happening to my grandfather because of dementia. The loss of routine with my grandmother's death caused him to start making questionable decisions. As we atempted to protect him, we misinterpreted why he was acting the way he was. This lead to further alienation as his symptoms grew more pronounced. It is my hope that by sharing these initial stages as we experienced them, we can help others in a similar situation.
My grandparents were always helping someone. When my father divorced, their house was a place of stability. As I grew up, I heard of cousins, friends and others that relied on that refuge for themselves. I never heard of remuneration, there was never a question of space or logistics. They would open a space for those that needed it. A cousin we called Aunt treated them like second parents. Their home was open to my father's friends in his youth, and friends of my brother and me during ours. When home life was rough, we lived there full-time, and they would cart us all over the US for summer vacation. When my grandmother died, my bother and I were gone with families of our own. From our perspective, he lost something he'd always had: a person that needed his help.
For the few months, life seemed to be returning to normal. I stayed at the house a few nights a week to help keep him company, and other family stepped in to pack up my grandmother's things. The past few years had left him increasingly isolated. My grandmother slowed to where she mostly watched TV, and my grandfather noticed this. He would repeat to us his concern about our grandmother with every visit. Sometimes more than once in the same visit. We filed it away as odd but not beyond his typical behavior. A bout with shingles caused my grandfather to stop attending church in about 2010. His own friend group had aged with him as well. His closest friend, a gardening columnist in the Las Vegas area, passed in 2014 as well. He had few visitors outside family. My brother and I were strategizing on what the future looked like. Would one of us move in and help out? What would my grandfather want? In the middle of this period, we started running up against a wall as his compensations started to crumble.
As I was working full time, my grandfather was helping my family (let alone another) with rides to and from school, doctors, and other family appointments. We began to notice that he was less punctual than usual. His driving was less careful. And we would sometimes call him for a pick-up and wait more than an hour while he was unreachable on his phone. We'd finally reach him to find that he was off on the opposite end of town having completely forgotten about the request. Eventually, our family was no longer comfortable relying on him, or trusting him behind the wheel.
As a former handyman, my grandfather was the first person I thought of when my father's wooden gate broke. We loaded it into the back of a truck and set off to see him. When we got there, we worked mostly in the garage, and I noticed my grandfather was wary of letting us go inside. Finally, I went in and met a mother and her child. This was the first time I met Zakeyaha Amacker. I had never seen these people before in my life, but my grandfather claimed he knew the mom through her mother from way back, and that he was giving the children a ride to school. I tried to pry, but he shut me down. They claimed to be Katrina refugees and that they lived close by. I made it a point to increase my presence. He was being nice and had found a way to help someone in the absence of my grandmother. They seemed like friendly and temporary personalities in my grandfather's life. I could not be more wrong.
Starting about 5 months after my grandmother's death, the situation at the house became untenable. The people I met had moved in. The house was a mess with dishes, spoiled food, and trash everywhere. In the preceding months, the only thing I could find on Zakeyaha was an article from the Las Vegas Sun about a double shooting at the Excalibur in 2012, and the only local women that I know of who hang out at the Excalibur in the middle of the day are sex workers. We were afraid for my grandfather's safety, jewelry was missing, and my grandfather, despite assurances, could not tell us what these people were doing here or when they would be gone.
The whole month of May, I pressed my grandfather on the phone for an explanation to what I had seen. He denied that he knew about any of it, and he swore they would be gone within the week. But the weeks dragged on. I would explain the evidence again, and he would reassure me again. One night, I found the house to be vacant when I had scheduled a visit with him. In a fit, I locked every door and called my brother to come over too. While we were waiting for them to arrive, someone rolled up looking for 'Z' and claiming to sell weed (still illegal in Vegas at the time). A Call to the cops was Answered with amBivalence. In the interim, my grandfather eventually arrived home with Zakeyaha in tow, I refused to let her inside without talking to my grandfather, first, alone. I explained the shady behavior to his face. Finally, I got my grandfather to agree to have her trespassed. The cops finally showed up and took away the person selling weed, but wantesd to stay out of the domestic dispute. Regardless, they did not force us to allow them back into the house. We bagged up her things and took her to a family member's apartment a few blocks away. Whew. What a relief. That was over.
All of this was absolutely bonkers to me. I grew up Mormon. My grandfather took me to church. Old people were supposed to obsess over their grandkids, not look for an entirely new family. I had hoped to move into his house with my family and be there as he aged. Instead, I'm trying to stop strangers from living there. I felt betrayed. Maybe she was a prostitute. Maybe he'd been a patron while my grandmother was still alive. I didn't know what to think. Most importantly, I didn't have the tools to even recognize what kind of cognitive impairment that was starting to take hold.
With dementia, it is not uncommon for families to notice a steep decline after major life changes. Things that seemed fine as they were happening (story repetition, arriving late, and keeping new company, or uncharacteristic anger issues) are signals of damage in their brain, and that damage adds up over time. Know that none of this is because your loved one no longer loves you or just doesn't care. As hard as it may be, try to not take their words personally as you help steer them toward help and safety. In truth, a person suffering from dementia can no longer understand why their anger is misplaced. The brain is a wonderful and plastic thing, but eventually these cognitive changes and reach a breaking point. Often, the compensations rely on family and friends that are alienated by the new behavior. Social deficits creep in but aren't noticed until the spouse passes. Money trouble manifests only after reserves run dry. Anger spills over when they are overwhelmed with social stimuli they can no longer process. These are all symptoms of dementia, and each affected person walks a different path through them.
Dementia is not a normal part of aging, it is instead a distinct decline separate from the most common changes as we get older. Even if your family has no history of dementia, it is my recommendation that you get comfortable with the signs as soon as possible. Begin to take note of behavioral changes as you come across them. If you are your relative's Medical Power of Attorney, you can speak with their physicians directly. Your relative may consent to having you tag along at the doctor where you can voice your concerns and begin working on evaluations that will allow you to bring maximum treatment options to bear.
Beyond the signs and symptoms of cognitive impairment like memory and social deficits, dementia can also change the personality and manners of those it affects. It is common to have a person with dementia alternate between compliance and anger when confronted with difficult topics. The changes to their brain prevent them from processing social cues or events, and they will sometimes revert to fight or flight behavior as a compensation. It was this compliance that was used by Z to put off any talk of their departure, and it was this same compliance that allowed us to have Z trespassed. As my grandfather was more and more affected by dementia, he was angry over perceived slights and chafed at our attempts at seeking help. This was the hardest for us to deal with, and both my brother and I spent many a night yelling, confronting, and crying over someone we had never seen get actually irate. Try not to take it personally as it is not them that is doing this to you. It is the disease.
Through all of this, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was singularly unhelpful. They will do the bare minimum for you even if there are obvious signs of abuse. They took the guy with weed away before they considered handling the abuse in the house. And their referral to Elder Abuse detectives lead to years of disappointment. They may even prioritize looking at you and what you are trying to do as exploitative and unlawful because they do not know the first thing about dementia or responding to elder abuse. It looks like just one more domestic squabble. Cops are not your friends. Avoid calling them if at all possible. Handle things through family attorneys before syptoms appear instead.
Though we won this battle, we did not have a inkling of my grandfather's true condition. The symptoms were right in front of us if we had been educated enough to see them. It started with small behaviors that we were reluctant to call him on. Eventually, we could not rely on him for previously rock-solid tasks. And this chapter climaxed in discovering how others had begun to manipulate him. It would still be 5 years until we extricated him from their grasp.
