Faces of dementia #1

[lovelife65]

My mom, at her memory care home (yes, I didn't use the right aperture and the pictures are distracting and the highlights blown in the hair because lighting sucks).

[lunarbo]

Well yes,all of the above,but she looks at you with love and I think some degree of pride.
And that’s what matters.

[Manfred M]

Unfortunately, a look I know all too well. My mother suffered from Alzheimer's for many years and went slowly downhill over a couple of decades. She lived in Toronto, which is about a 5-hour drive from where I live, but as I frequently went to Toronto on business, I would try to drop in on her quite often (every month or two).

I stopped visiting at one point when she not only no longer recognized me, but also when I could see that she was clearly afraid of me and showed signs of relief when I left her room. Dementia is a terrible disease, not only for the person who has it, but also for everyone who knows and loves them.

[Antonio Correia]

I am sorry Sharon if your mother is ill suffering from Alzheimer...
It may happen to any of us !
Your photo is good, nothing to complain about !

[lovelife65]

Thank you for the kind comments. She has fronto temporal dementia, different part of the brain impacted than with alzheimers.
She's actually doing better in the environment I moved her into, but boy it's quite an exercise in stress to move a parent across country. She did great.
Manfred, I completely understand and I am so sorry for what you went through. My mom still recognizes me and is relatively high function. Still feeds herself, will read parts of the paper, sing, play games etc. Short term memory recall is toast though. She's very sweet and has none of the big negative behaviors.
It's an evil disease. Really just awful to watch someones mind go, and it's hard for those knowing it's happening.
Antonio, yes. The statistics for dementia/alzheimers are pretty mind boggling. It's only getting worse, I hope they make some progress on treatment at least.

Her 87th birthday is January 29th and we will have a nice celebration of her

[lovelife65]

Well yes,all of the above,but she looks at you with love and I think some degree of pride.
And that’s what matters.

Thank you for such a kind comment.

[Shadowman]

The image will still be an important keepsake, stay strong.

[DanK]

A very nice image, and one that you will treasure.

We too went though this with a parent. It really is an awful disease. At the end, we were confronted with a lot of irrational and sometimes angry behavior.

The lighting where you were was not wonderful for photography. I'm guessing that the room was at least partially illuminated by florescent lights. However, you can probably compensate to some degree. For example, my immediate reaction was that there is yellow-green color cast. You can at least partially offset that: move a little toward blue on the blue-yellow axis and a little toward magenta on the green-magenta access. I did a very quick edit of that sort and ended up with this, which I suspect is closer:

[lovelife65]

A very nice image, and one that you will treasure.

We too went though this with a parent. It really is an awful disease. At the end, we were confronted with a lot of irrational and sometimes angry behavior.

The lighting where you were was not wonderful for photography. I'm guessing that the room was at least partially illuminated by florescent lights. However, you can probably compensate to some degree. For example, my immediate reaction was that there is yellow-green color cast. You can at least partially offset that: move a little toward blue on the blue-yellow axis and a little toward magenta on the green-magenta access. I did a very quick edit of that sort and ended up with this, which I suspect is closer:

Thank you, she is a beautiful lady inside and out . There are residents experiencing what you describe in terms of behaviors. It's an ugly disease. I sure hope she manages to bypass those behaviors, I do believe given her disease is in the white matter of the brain vs the gray matter as in alzheimers, maybe we will get lucky?

No it is not wonderful lighting at all. Very bright and harsh florescent lights. I should play with the settings in camera to see if I can compensate with a different white balance setting. In many ways I believe the lighting is opposite of what should be in a memory care facility. (but of course florescent is cheap). I also do not know why they don't tone it down/turn some off in the early evening.

Yes, I noticed the yellow cast especially, as her hair if pure white and that did not show in the original image. Your edit is much more true to how she should look. Thank you for taking the time.