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(grocery shopping for the elderly is a fu**king pain in the @ss, end rant). Howdy :) I wrote before how I'm the main caretaker of my 84 yr old grand dad with mild dementia. He lives by himself in a senior building, but its not an assisted living facility so he gets no help. (but they do provide the shuttle busses service to the grocery store, but he refuses to use it because he has the patience of a fly,and will bark, yell & complain). Like I'm sure many of you experience, grocery shopping as a caretaker is a total pain in the @ss. Crazy as this sounds, granddad still drives himself to the grocery store, with a neighbor in the car for safety (he shouldnt, I know). But shopping with him is a nightmare, so I'm glad I dont have to go most times. I just pray he makes it home safe. But he's getting too old & weak to go shopping. But 80% of the time he doesnt need the bull he thinks he so desperately needs, so its annoying. I just hired a home health aide but I'm unsure if she even has a drivers license (she works 3 days a week). Granddad acts like a spoiled toddler and constantly insists he needs 1000 things from the store all the time, but I hate taking him shopping because he's too slow & complains,complains, complains. He complains about where I park, complains that we didnt go early enough, etc...Also, although I drive very well and I'd be happy to go by myself, he actually complains when I drive myself to get his groceries (in his car, my car broke down). Instread of being thankful that someone is doing him a favor, he acts like an ungrateful jerk. So I no longer want to take him shopping, or go by myself because he acts like such an as^ about it. I dont know if the aide has her license (I forgot to ask her before I hired her). I could send her to the store by herself I guess.There's a neighbor I could pay about $50 a month to go, but I'm unsure what to do. How do you all handle the shopping??, and how do you handle your loved one when they make endless demands for stupid items they probably dont even need???)

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Morena - lol! Ah yes, the epic tantrum. One more - last one, I promise - but it feels so good to vent to someone who really gets it! This one combines the library AND the grocery store. So, I've told my mom 1000 times if she wants me to drive her somewhere on my visits she has to tell me at least the day ahead as I had to get someone to watch my disabled son - it had become impossible for me to take them out together. I get to her place, we get in the car to go to the grocery store. As I'm pulling out, my mom removes her folded cloth book bag from her purse and tells me she wants to go to the library before we go grocery shopping. I tell her I don't have the sitter long enough to do both. Mom gets pouty and say the library called that morning and her books are ready. I repeat that we can't do both that day and tell her to pick one - groceries or library. Mom sets her mouth to The Look and says library. Then she adds that she's out of Depends. I attempt reasoning, saying then we have to do the groceries and we'll do the library in a few days. More of The Look and the pout and mom says No. She wants to go to the library and that she'll just stuff rags in her pants! Recognizing this for the manipulation it was, I say "fine, stuff rags in your pants"! We drive in silence to the library. On the way home I knew I couldn't let her go without Depends so I pull into the grocery store lot. Mom gets all perky. Now, I have about 20 minutes to drop mom off and get home in time for the sitter to leave - it's a 15 minute drive home... I turned to my mom and said "I'm running in to get your Depends. Don't you dare move from this car. If you are not here when I get back, I will leave you and you can find your own way home". It was one of the few times I ever really lost it with my mom. That was the day I called a caregiver agency. That was also the day I began buying my moms Depends myself - at Costco in the ever convenient industrial size box!
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Morena7, your granddad has dementia, right? You really cannot expect normal, rational behavior from him. In caregiving someone with dementia you either 1) accept the realities of their damaged brain 2) bow out of the caregiving or 3) lose your own sanity.

Personally, I recommend option 1, but it takes time and patience to learn.

How would you handle a spoiled toddler who insists he needs thousands of things? Again, it is a matter of recognizing that granddad has a damaged brain and in some ways can't be expected to make his own buying decisions any better than a toddler could.

Have you considered stores that deliver? Sure cuts down on impulse buying!
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Going to the grocery store is an outing for the elderly
Pushing a shopping cart is easier than using a walker
I used to take mom with me to the grocery store on Sunday evenings
She would usually have to pee a couple of times while there - I'd always say meet me in the produce section - she never did
I'd either be looking up and down one aisle or another for her or she'd wander outside looking for me or worst have me paged by a cashier like a lost child

Her last night at home I ran to the store for 30 minutes - she got scared and went outside and fell in the neighbors driveway

Caregiving especially for someone with dementia requires time and patience -
See if you can work together on a weekly list before going to the store - can you get some of the items without him going along?
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For my mom (who no longer needed to grocery shop) it was Bed Bath and Beyond. It was an outing for her. Shopping had ALWAYS been her stress reliever, even when we were little kids, so I treated it as such.

I never went to BBB with mom even THINKING about doing any of my own shopping there. I focused totally on her, what she was looking for and the like. It was exhausting. It was only once every two or three weeks (the other weeks we did haircut, going to the dry cleaners and other "errands" that yes, the facility could have taken her to. But she liked to do these things "privately".

If you are going to do the "helping out" thing, read about dementia and watch Teepa Snow videos. Understand about the fact that he brain is BROKEN and that it takes perhaps an infinite amount of patience to accompany a demented elder shopping.

Also, set some boundaries on his behavior. "Grandad; I have a new rule. No complaining while we're out shopping. Let's make this a pleasant time for the two of us to be together". "Ooops, no complaining Grandad!". Give it a try
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Morena - just for fun, I'm gonna tell you about The Library! My mom was a voracious reader and mom being a thrifty woman - she would get what ever books she wanted by ordering them through the library. Once moms drivers license was gone I also got the joy of taking mom to the library once a week - often she wanted to go a couple times a week but I put my foot down. But here's the thing - mom didn't just want to go to the library - she wanted to go to HER library. Moms library was in our old neighborhood- a good twenty minute, one way - drive from her apartment. Our old neighborhood had become trendy and popular - never anywhere to park so getting mom in and out was a mini ordeal - double parking, emergency flashers, people in their cars yelling at me as I unloaded mom, her walker, the ever present purse, book bag, walked to the front door with her - held the door for her...you get the picture. I tried to get mom to go to the library near her apartment - five minutes away, huge parking lot... but NOooo! It had to be HER library. Some may say "she was familiar with her old library" etc, but she never perused the shelves - she ordered the books on line and picked them up at the Will-Call desk. But it gets better - I find out a big "book mobile" goes to my moms IL once a month AND joy of joys - you can order books AND they'll bring them to your apartment door!!! All you had to do was fill out a simple form. So, I get a bunch of these forms, the calendar of when the book-mobile comes and happy dance to my moms apartment. Mom gets all pissy, gets that look to her face - the one with her mouth and jaw set just so - and that was the end of it. Until - and here's the kicker - about a year later I see one of the forms filled out on moms desk - I say "I see you've decided to try this after all" to which mom says "oh yes! It's something your Aunt Betty told me about! I wish
I'd known about it months ago!" At which point I drove home and began looking for my gun.
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Actually, my mom passed away about two months ago. I loved mom and had a lot of respect for the person she was prior to dementia but - I'm no hypocrite- my mom had been a stubborn, self centered manipulater all my life and most likely, all hers. Dementia made it 100x worse - until I finally got her to see a geriatric psychiatrist who got mom on some proper medications- her last 8 months were better. But yes, to your question. Mom would call me constantly accusing me of never seeing her when I was visiting her twice a week. Once, when the caregiver came back after a two week vacation she told me my mom was sad because I hadn't visited or seen to any of her care needs the entire two weeks - and yes, I had made sure mom had a substitute caregiver the whole time - in addition to my visits. When I found this site I had been looking after my mom for five years and I was physically, emotionally and mentally close to a complete breakdown myself! Morena- it's good you've found this site early on in your trip down the rabbit hole after your grandfather- this site and the wonderful people who post here will prove invaluable to you.
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GardenArtist I'll have to call his Car Insurance. I hope they dont charge extra for that, thanks

ZYTrhr: Yeah, the shuttle would be a LAST resort, he has NO patience and I'm 90% sure he'd verbally abuse the Bus Driver, sream & yell at him for simpply doing his job. My GrandDad thinks that waiting 5 minutes is waiting 5 hours, he explodes and goes into tirades if he has to "wait". Honestly I even feel bad forcing the Aide to get on the Shuttle Bus with him; his constant Complaining & Waiting would be a form of torture for her. I actaully want my Aide to be treated nicely and I told her to INFORM me if he EVER treats her rudely, it will NOT be tolerated; I rarely raise my voice but I will definitely give him an ear-full if he dares to be rude to her. But luckily she's kinda attractive so he's being NICE & Flirty to her beause his old "ladies man" mannerisms are kickin in when she comes around (Oy!)
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Morena7, yes, welcome to the forums. Anytime you see someone write that they need to put their helmet on, please note the helmet is invisible, it comes in handy if you want to bang your head against the wall.

It's been suggested if you are in too much stress, build yourself a blanket fort in your livingroom, and bring out the coloring books. I noticed that Sheldon, on the Big Bang Theory, enjoyed his blanket fort :)

Sometimes someone will mention "leaning their ears back". Just visualize an animal who is upset with their ears facing backwards and their teeth showing in a growl. How many times we all have felt like doing that.

Sounds like you need a helmet when you take Grand-Dad shopping !!
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FreqFlyer - I tried that too, doing my grocery shopping at the same time - just to keep busy and try to lessen my annoyance. But yeah, I'd finish an entire cart and mom would be on isle 3. So I'd say, "here, let me see your list and I'll go get some of your items". Oh no! Couldn't possibly do that! Mom insisted on going up and down every freakin' isle "just in case" she'd see something she forgot to put on her list. Perhaps another box of Triscuts to add to the four boxes she already had at home?
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FregFlyer: Lol!! :)

and thanks for the welcome. And a blanket fort sounds nice.

Ya know, I think probably most of us caretakers are all the "good ones/good kids/nice guys" who strangely got stuck with obnoxious (sometimes impossible) parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles :)

RainMom: sorry about your Mom. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing with me!
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