Hi Carolina,
Astraea's advice is always spot on, I have a couple of thoughts inspired by what you wrote. First up, have you talked about your mother's behavior with her doctor? I don't know if she sees a family nurse practitioner, an internist, a geriatric psychiatrist or a neurologist, but someone in that line up should be able to prescribe something that will help her be calmer. And perhaps a little less delusional about people who are not visiting just because she knew them 20 years ago. Something that our medical director used to prescribe to hospice patients was haloperidol (I was a hospice social worker at one time.) Agitation is a problem for people with dementia, and also for their caregivers, and there are medications that can be tried. It's worth asking about.
I was once a geriatric care manager, and there was a very paranoid client i tried to help. It took some weeks to gain her trust: i had to sit on the porch and talk through her door before she finally would open the door. She lived alone and was healthy physically, but her dementia was well advanced. She was willing to go see a psychiatrist, whom i referred to as a 'stress doctor' -- his purpose was to reduce her stress. He prescribed haldol, or haloperidol, as a 'stress reducing pill.' I was amazed: it helped a lot, and she admitted that she felt 'less stress.' I became a firm believer. And it's been around forever. It is not a benzodiazipine, like Valium, which is not recommended for anyone more than as a short term solution, and especially not for older people, who metabolize medications more slowly. Anyway, make an appointment, fax something to her or him the day before and mention her behavior. See what happens.
The other thought is, why are you the designated martyr, i mean, designated caregiver? Is it because you don't have kids (at home), and/or you're single? If there's one theme to my advice to caregivers, it's "enlarge the caregiving circle"! There's all kinds of ways in which siblings or cousins or church members, et al, can help out, pitch in, volunteer, mow the yard, donate some money to hire an aide, even if it's just once a week...
The other thing is for you to take care of yourself. It sounds like you're suffering from stress, in body and mind. Finding some solution to your parents' behavior with a doctor's help might reduce your stress. Getting breaks might also. You chose this role, but it is worth trying to find a way to survive it.
If he gets back into spitting into the sink you could have a bottle of bleach & water nearby and squirt the sink heartily. I hope he's really stopped.
Another way to reduce stress is to write us, and you did that. There's a wise community of folks here. Please keep writing, and good luck with them both.
Jane
