Portrayal of dementia on the show Fire Country.

I, 59F, often watch a show about firefighters called Fire Country. They now have a character who is pretty deep in to his dementia. Mostly lack of memory and impulse control. They've started this story line about 1 month ago, but this Friday, March 7, they got into the elopement (running away) and driving a car unsupervised issues.

My father has done both of those things a few times and ended up on a week psych hold. I finally persuaded Mom to install door alarms, now I need to get her to stop turning them off, etc and so on and I finally got Mom to "hide" the car keys by only keeping them in her purse. THAT WAS ALSO A STRUGGLE. Dad can't find the keys any more so he never drives. Telling Mom that if she (we) knowingly allowed him access to her keys, if he hurt/killed someone, she (we) could be sued for all we owned didn't phase her. (yep, ostrich head-in-the-sand behavior).

The show really approached these issues in a thoughtful, kind, and rather realistic manner. Especially the "realization" that dementia does NOT get better and continuing and increasing problems are to be expected. (Big Sigh here...) If you like TV, I recommend you take a peek at the shows from mid February to 3/7.

I gotta go have a cry minute. I miss my Dad so sososoo much!