Help... not about Cambodia

[Don-Pierre de Plume]

I have a friend (much older than me in more ways than one) who clearly suffers from self-confessed dementia... either that or he is pulling my legs out (by phone) every day.

Always complains about women...

Has been using computers and the internet but does not understand the difference between searching and entering a URL...

When I ask him to put the address in the address bar, he habitually puts it in the search bar insisting he put it in the address bar... and so, confusion...

I created a Yahoo email address for him...

When in Yahoo mail and sees a message from someone in DateInAsia, he tells me he is on the DataInAsia website...

Telling me he is lonely, I created a DateInAsia profile for him so he wouldn't ask me how to...

Every time he wants to log on, he calls me and asks me how to (but never forgets his username and password)...

Insists that a shortcut should include username and password...

Showed him many times how to create a shortcut but doesn't know what I mean when I tell him they are placed on his desktop...

Showed him how to set Yahoo Mail as his homepage (instead of 'blank') so he can access his mail easily...

Blames me because his computer is not the same as before...





What should I do:

A. Tell him to piss off
B. Patiently explain everything every day over and over and over
C. Shoot myself

Any recommendations???

[Nasty Canasta]

C.

[digiboy]

A.

[vladimir]

You make a very good argument for involuntary euthanasia. Youth in Asia?

[Don-Pierre de Plume]

Forgot the other option...

D. Shoot him.

[Nasty Canasta]

Well, it that case, D.

[digiboy]

E.

Shoot him, then yourself.

[vladimir]

F. (All)

[Alex]

I'd try (A) first. This failing, move on to (D).

[cambod]

Try C three or four times.

If that doesn't work, try B, because that is about all you might be capable of doing in this world.

P.S. Tell ur gf's mom I said hello!

[NedK]

If it is at all possible you should help him get to the doctor and have them determine if he is suffering from dementia, and what exactly is causing it. Some causes of dementia have obvious solutions to them that might prevent things from getting worse. Others have no treatment or cure really at all. I'm not sure where either of you are located, but try to get somebody - family, whoever - to get him checked out. It could make a big difference.

I wouldn't put him on the Asian Dating site, though it's unlikely he'll use it well enough to meet anyone. People suffering from dementia are extremely vulnerable to scams and stuff, he could get himself in a load of trouble if he actually did find himself talking to someone and it was the wrong sort of person.

As far as computer instructions, type them out, step by step, in the clearest possible language, and then tell him to consult those first. If he can't follow those kinds of directions, he shouldn't bother with the computer. I made instruction sheets like that for my grandmother for everything - and she's still able to understand them and check her email etc, at about age 90.

[TJP777]

What Ned said! My dad was going that way a few years back and we finally got him to go to the doctor. They have done a few things for him including giving a bit of a clean out to a artery that carries blood to the brain and anti-depression meds. He has improved a lot and it will probably make the difference between him eventually dying while still living at home with my mum his wife of 50+ years or having spent a few final miserable years in a care home. The sooner your mate gets to a doctor the sooner that they can do something to stop the rot.

[Don-Pierre de Plume]

Thanks guys. I will talk to him again tonight.

He is 70 now but fit and in good shape. He was on anti-depressants before and I was one of his friends urging him to drop the stuff as it also made him moody.

As a start I created an image showing which is the address box (URL) and which is the search box... the two he would always confuse. But him not using a printer I'd have to send it to him by post.

I have never known anyone with so many computer issues but I think most of it is his attitude... rather than finding out why his microphone didn't work the other day, he calls others, only to find that it wasn't plugged in. But he'll pull a fridge to pieces to find out where the problem is. Just has some mental block towards computers.

He lives 1000km away, so not convenient for me to drop it.

[TJP777]

Yeah I was a bit surprised by the anti-depressants but he had got really down and despondent because he knew what was happening to him. He would do things like go in his car to places 20 minutes away that he had been going to for decades then come back an hour later having got lost and have to get my mum to come with him to tell him where to turn etc. The surgery to restore the blood flow to his brain and the anti-depression meds and dementia meds happened at the same time so it is hard to tell what had the effect. When I was home for his 80th Bd last year the old bugger was so bright and chirpy that he was a pain in the ass. Always wanting to chat and tell his same stupid dad jokes. Which is pretty much what he had been like for the 40 years before his downward slide. So he was back to his old self!

[flying chicken]

Maybe your straw hats that turned him into a lunatic.