Alzheimer's: In the Span of a Year

I was looking through old photos and ran across some of Grandma when she lived at Liberty Village in 2003. She had only been off the farm a short time, and I remember that she was really having problems keeping track of things (meds, time, meals, etc.) and that we were worried that she would do something like over cook food or set something on fire. We had a party for her in August (pictured with her great-grandchildren: Scotty, Austin, David and the triplets Erin, Grant and Kira).

A few months later she was moved from her apartment in Liberty Village to a room in another section of the facility with no kitchen and basically a bed, entertainment center and living room area. It wasn't long after that move that she kept falling out of bed and losing her direction in the hallway. The decision was made to move her to Hillcrest in 2004 so that she would have round-the-clock care by nurses and aides. Later in 2004 the family decided to have Thanksgiving at Hillcrest so we could be with Grandma (pictured with my family Ethan, Scotty, Chad and Tom top and then me, Grandma and my mom). The change she went through in that year's time is cruelly obvious, and it seemed like I couldn't keep up enough with learning more about the disease and then getting used to her personality (or lack thereof) and the idea that THIS is how she would be from then on.