Actress Amy Aquino recounts caring for a loved one with dementia

I mean, I went through the late-stage dementia with my parents and with other family members. Actually, we lost one. My niece's nephew's grandmother died just yesterday. Eleanor was a wonderful, vital woman, died at almost 101. And just very late in life, she was very sharp, but very late in the last several years, she developed a certain amount of dementia. And we had a big, her daughters gave her a big 100th birthday party last year, which we attended. And she had a lovely time. She kind of, you know, she sort of recognized some people and not, but she had a very nice time. But at the end, she got very agitated. She needed to call her mother. She needed to go back to her parents, because they were going to be worried about her. And my, because the sister-in-law, whichever, called her friend. She said, I want you to call my home. Here's your name. Ask for Eleanor. Ask how she's doing. Here's some little tidbits of information and tell her she needs to stay at my house. And so then the phone rings, and Stephanie says, oh, wait, Mom, I have to go pick up the phone. She goes, oh, oh, hi, it's for you. It's your mom. And she gave it to her. And, and you could see, you know, Eleanor was, oh, Mom, I'm so sorry. I know you're worried about me. And they had this conversation. And by the end, she was calm. She knew where she was supposed to sleep that night. And I've had it with my parents. You don't try to impose reality. Don't, you can't, you can't be chastising them, scolding them for not knowing, go with where they're at. I mean, what do you call it? We call it a fiblet. I told Amy, we call it a fiblet. You really just need to go and be where they are.