Sorry. Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia. I’ve been working way too much lately and am speaking in lingo everywhere. (who else tells their kid it’s time for their HS care?)
Basically BPSD is the aggression and hard to manage “behaviours” of Alzheimer’s and related dementia. Yes, it is a bit like ATM machine, but that’s the term we use.
Generally when people have extremely “challenging behaviours” (aka beating the crap out of anyone who lays a hand on them to bathe them, change adult briefs, give medication, even to feed them) they get passed around from long term care, to special dementia care units, then to tertiary mental health services usually in a psychiatric hospital or geriatric psych unit of a hospital. In Vancouver, I am working in a unit that has been off loaded from a closed Psychiatric Hospital. In Thunder Bay they are closing the Psychiatric Hospital and not planning where the services will go.
Thanks for the explanation. I can be guilty of using colloquial insider language at times–just the other day, I had a client who ended up being “screwed, blued, and tattooed,” as we unofficially call it. (It is officially known as “administrative lockup,” [or “ALU”], or “seg” [i.e. segregation] time; though most of us would know it as “solitary confinement.”) I did my best, but the evidence weighed against him.
Thank you also for the other information. I am unsure just what the difference is between Alzheimer’s and dementia, but I appreciate the work that you are doing. As you may recall, my father suffers from one or both of the above, and your posts help me to understand, and to deal when I speak with him.
He’s hanging in. In spite of the fact that he is in a home, he is happy about meeting with “some guys” to talk about a new roof on his house (which was sold a year ago). I have no idea who “these guys” are, but I will play along.
He can do no harm, to himself or others. He is in a home, and looked after. I hope to be able to get to Toronto to see him soon. I’ll take him a Tim Hortons coffee (he loves Tim’s coffee), and sing his favourite songs to him. Then, I’ll head to the bus stop, and likely weep.
I’ll add that the place I usually stay while in Toronto has a bar. I have learned, on my last visits, that the barman’s name is Michael.
Michael, on my next visit, I’ll be looking to you to help me deal with Dad. Not to forget, but to remember the most extraordinary, frustrating, kindly, and extremely imaginative person I’ve ever known.
That sucks, Spoons. I’ve lost three of my four grandparents in the last decade, two to senile dementia, one to Parkinson’s and dementia. So heartbreaking to watch people you’ve known all your lives, who were vibrant, thoughtful and charismatic, slowly deteriorate like that. I can feel your pain.
What is that material under the roadbed? Below the asphalt and about a couple of metres of gravel, there’s a thick layer of beige-coloured material. Is that clay?
It could be. Most likely its glacial till, which involves sedimentary material deposited by continental glaciers. Most often that is clay mixed with gravel and boulders and is packed really hard.
Back in the 70s, I was involved in the construction of a dam in northwest Ontario that employed a glacial till core to provide impermeability
I wouldn’t dare air my petty grievance in the Hurricane Sandy thread, but it would be nice if West Jet would let me change my flight NOW and not go through Toronto on Wednesday night. Really really unhappy about this. I chose to do a late night Vancouver-Toronto flight then a connecting flight from Toronto to Thunder Bay on Thursday morning.
I am afraid things will be so fubar’d in Toronto. I am packing my iphone power cord, and maybe loading a few extra books onto my Nook. West Jet says "the advisory is only for Oct 29 and 30th. Well do you think that there might be a backlog the next day? I could try to route Vancouver-Calgary-Winnipeg-Thunder bay and avoid the mess, (kill my eardrums in the process, but what the hell, I am half deaf anyway) but with the change free and the price differential, it would cost me three times more than my flight cost to begin with.
So, anyone wanna sit in Toronto Airport with me on Thursday?
Happy Halloween, everybody! I’m working with a “plausible deniability” costume today - a blue shirt and black pants that look like a Star Trek uniform, but can also look like just an office outfit.
I can’t remember one single Halloween of my trick-or-treating youth that involved anything approaching uncomfortable temperatures, or precipitation of any kind. Not one.
But since I started chaperoning mine own little ghouls and goblins nigh onto 20 years gone, it seems like it’s been kinda shitty weather just about 1 of every 3 years, on average.
I really don’t recall many specific Halloween moments, maybe a flash or three, from childhood, but I absolutely don’t recall any meteorological disappointment whatsoever. It only stands to reason that I must’ve gotten rained on in a couple of those years, my costume snowcovered, my makeup sleeted.
Maybe I just have a mental block, preventing me from remembering the crap weather?
Going halloweening as a kid in a town a bit north of Saskatoon, I remember freezing my ASS off most years. I’m sure we must have gotten snowed on some years, too.
