My 84 year old mother in law has become so incredibly lazy, that she no longer does anything to help herself (let alone anyone else). She gets out of bed in the morning, fills her pockets with Lil Debby cakes, cookies, or whatever, and sits down in her chair ALL DAY LONG and does absolutely nothing! She does NOT even get up to walk to the bathroom to use the toilet! Per my husbands request, at 5:15pm, I am to fix a plate of dinner for her. I physically walk it down to her living area of the house, walk over to where she sits, and I hand her her a plate of dinner, where she eats. My husband comes home from work a 6pm. Before he even says hello to me, he walks down the path outside to her door to tell her it is time for her to take her shower. Sometimes she comes up on the 1st request, but many times she won't come until the 2nd or 3rd request. After she does manage to get up, she has a HUGE mess of poop and pee all down her backside and down her legs! She gets into the bathroom, with all that mess, and sometimes really takes a shower, and sometimes just splashes around and pretends. All the while leaving a NASTY bathroom for us to clean, as well as everything she has touched on the way! She will then try to get back to her room before we can see if she really is clean, or IF she has put a clean diaper on. We have to be sure she gets her diaper on, because- like I said, she is so lazy, she won't do it. After all that, she goes back to her room, watches tv, and goes to bed. HERE IS THE PROBLEM; The following morning, this whole scenario starts over! I am so sick of this! She has been living here for 22 YEARS! Back then, her doctor thought she 'may' have early dementia, which she latched onto and played every time it was convenient. Other than her laziness, we haven't seen any "dementia" as we know of dementia. I was in the medical field, my grandfather and grandmother HAD dementia, so I am very familiar with dementia. THIS is pure laziness! If she can walk, talk, answer questions, know her name, knows who we are, who her grandchildren are, knows where to go when we tell her to go to the bathroom, knows how to eat and knows what she wants- THEN DAMN IT- is it too much that I tell my husband that we should put our foot down and tell her she is being inconsiderate and down right lazy by not doing things for herself that she should be doing? She is a complete narcissist at this point! Not even caring just a little about our lives as a family! This is beyond disgusting! My husband doesn't want his mother to feel bad- or feel as if she is a burden. DAMN! How about her NOT being a burden! I am so sick of this filthy pig of a human being!
Please note, there are at least 6 forms of dementia, each one is different. So what your grandparents had may have been different than what Mom-in-law has since she has a different DNA chart and not related.
By chance is mom-in-law overweight, since you mentioned she stuffs her pockets with high sugary food.... where does she get these items? If Mom is over-weight and being that she is now 84, her energy level will be very low. It's not being lazy, it's being age related decline. We will all get that in our later lives. In fact, I have found myself being tired as it takes me twice as long to do things then it did 10 years ago. Mom-in-law needs to have her vitamin B12 checked to see if it is below standard charts.... low count can make one feel so very tired. I know, I had that issue.
Imagine being in Mom-in-law's shoes. She has no energy. The only entertainment she has is TV. Bet the friends she had had since moved away or had passed on. I guess she no longer drives, so there's no hopping into the car to go shopping or join friends for lunch. If her husband died, then the love of her life has been gone for quite some time. Each day is the same day.
If Mom-in-law can budget it, she would be soooo much happier living in Independent Living, where she can be around people of her own generation. To enjoy the music of that era, to talk about movie stars and TV stars who we rarely know, and to have meals with her table mates. I bet she would take better care of herself then. As right now, why should she bother :(
The fact that is sounds like your Mom-in-law has given up, since she doesn't join the family for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I assume there is no kitchen in her living space since there is no shower there.