On good days my mom is feeling good she likes to go to Walmart, Ross, tj max. It’s how she likes to get out of the house. But she will spend $300 or more easily on clothes. Saying she needs them for church or work, things she doesn’t do or attend anymore. My father will return them as she doesn’t even remember buying them by the time they get home. But now he is getting flagged at these places for fraudulent behavior and isn’t allowed to return items. He tries to off load things before he gets to checkout. Many times she isn’t even with him when they checkout and he will still buy everything knowing she won’t remember. So it’s a two part problem. One with dementia and one who doesn’t know how to manage this particular problem and lives in fear of displeasing his wife. Us kids are trying to come up with solutions to suggest to my dad the primary caregiver. She has storage bins full of clothes in all the storage in their house. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!
Keep shopping bags of the clothes she already bought in the car . Let her take them out of the car from “ yesterday’s shopping trip” . She can try on , fold , whatever .
Put them back in the car when she sleeps .
Rinse and repeat each next day as needed .
1. Dad will need to face this.
Currenty he is enabling the situation to go on.
I get why.. it IS hard! What to do? How to avoid Mom getting upset, right?
2. Imbalance: Mom has access to funds that appear to outstrip her cognitive ability.
I would suggest Dad go to the bank. Set up a separate *spend* account for Mom. He can deposit a small weekly amount he is happy for her to blow. Her card will be denied once she hits the limit. (He can then blame the Bank :)
3. Social contact & activitily.
As others have suggested, he may need to find alternative experiences to replace shopping.
My folks faced this too. One wanted to shop - not to spend up but for outings, see new things, interact with people. Due to brain & mobility changes, could not initiate an activity, could not concentrate on a hobby, could no longer do the household tasks (cook, wash, clean). But while shopping met the social needs for one, it was stressing & exhausting the other. In this case, costly & causing problems at stores too.
4. Asking for advice. I would point your Dad towards a Dementia foundation helpline, council aging services, their Doctor. For him to speak up about this challenge & hopefully then find alternative activities to meet Mom's social needs.
As a caring daughter, it is natural to want to fix this.. but with brain changes, everything must change.
If her memory is that short, then he can just say "No" or "In a while" and then redirect or distract her with something else she likes to do. If he's driving her, he doesn't have to. "The car battery is dead" "The engine light is on" etc. Then distract, redirect.
I agree with strategies to avoid taking her out to begin with: therapeutic fibs about a "power outage" in that area...
Or, takes her out but less often and then only to GoodWill or a thrift store and she has a prepaid Visa card with a small limit.
It's difficult to be the Entertainment Committee for someone with short-term memory impairment because it's a bottomless pit. Your Dad should maybe consider hiring a companion aid to entertain her and take her on non-spending outings. In the end, the problem and the solution is only your Dad, since he's the only one who can change.
If mom has a credit card in her name FREEZE it so it can not be used. Or report it lost and the credit card company will cancel the card and send dad a new one.
If she has a cart loaded with items dad can have her sit by the register or wait while he "checks out" and leave the cart. Tell mom that since she is a valued customer the items will be delivered later.
My dad had dementia and lost all sense of the value of money after a lifetime of dedicated, systematic saving. Thank goodness we realized before he had wasted his entire retirement account. He was buying 5 or 10 copies of the same book online and then would just shrug when they arrived. He could no longer read books. We had to cancel all his credit cards and put him on a low amount Debit card. Even then, he would try to do crazy things like tip $30 on a $5 ice cream.
Start getting rid of all the storage bins of clothes. Consign the clothing if it is new and worth consigning. Don't even tell her. Have your father take the bins outside one or two every week and leave them somewhere she won't see them like the garage, shed, or side of the house. When you or one of your siblings comes to visit, they can discreetly put them in their car when they leave.
Next, your father needs to hire a companion/caregiver for your mother who will take her out a few times a week and give your father a break. Your father needs to give your mother a budget when the companion/caregiver takes her out. A cash budget or a limited amount that is put onto a card. Then that's it. She doesn't get to spend any more than that per outing. She will probably pout, complain, or even throw a tantrum but your father cannot allow her to have unrestricted access to money if she has dementia.
I did companion/caregiver work for a long time and often ran into this kind of problem. A client would want to spend more than they were allowed to. You just cannot allow them to. How I always handled any tantrums about it was to show the client how much they had and if they carried on we would leave. This usually works.
My mom doesn't get out of the house but she does love to shop online, the only thing she manages to do without confusion or hesitation with her Alzheimers. It's a big pain in the rear but I control it by controling her debit card. Mostly.
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