Hi all, can I ask for some thoughts and advice.
Mum is 81. She has dementia, diagnosed by the local memory clinic doc over a year ago. She has so far refused CT and MRI scans and reluctantly took Arisept for 3 days before having every side effect listed in the packet literature, and then refusing to take it or anything like it ever again.
From reading through symptoms, she seems to have a fairly clear cut case of vascular dementia.I think we are approaching late mid stage- her conversation is unintelligible as she cannot find the words or remember the conversation, she can cope with washing and dressing, but its getting haphazard, she cannot remember how to spell her surname or what her address is. Her moods are very fluctuating, with a fair dose of paranoia and aggression, and no one in the world exists except her and what she thinks and wants. She lives alone, frequently refuses to allow the twice a day carers in, either by leaving the chain on or the key in the door, won't take her blood pressure medication, and when you take her to nthe GP with pains etc, suddenly becomes well again as soon as you get into the consulting room. Blood tests last month were clear, nothing physically wrong at all.
We were discharged from memory clinic as they could do no more for her, but she has recently lost a lot of weight through forgetting to eat, so the GP's Practice Nurse has involved the memory clinic again.
Today Mum had an appointment come through for a CT scan. She is very unhappy about it, and getting upset. It is also at 7pm on a Saturday night in a hospital 20 miles away, and since Mum is in bed by 6, that alone will be a big disruption for her.
Is it worth going? We have a diagnosis already, there is no medication she can take as a result of confirmation it is vascular dementia, the scan, it seems to me, won't get us any further on. Even if there is a brain tumour or other nasty, she isn't mentally well enough for surgery, and giving her more pills for anything is useless as she won't take the pills she's already prescribed anyway. The whole thing seems a bit pointless.
We see the memory clinic nurse again on the 5 th. Do I tell her we won't go for the scan? Is it worth 3 weeks of worried upset Mum and a late, disruptive night? Why is this scan so important? I can't see what we will gain from it, and I do see the stress making her a lot worse and she won't recover from any deterioration. Is it another tick box event for the local memory clinic funding returns rather than an investigation for the benefit of the patient? We've had quite a few of those in the last couple of years, and I've become somewhat cynical about the so called 'patient centred approach'
Any thoughts gratefully recieved
Mum is 81. She has dementia, diagnosed by the local memory clinic doc over a year ago. She has so far refused CT and MRI scans and reluctantly took Arisept for 3 days before having every side effect listed in the packet literature, and then refusing to take it or anything like it ever again.
From reading through symptoms, she seems to have a fairly clear cut case of vascular dementia.I think we are approaching late mid stage- her conversation is unintelligible as she cannot find the words or remember the conversation, she can cope with washing and dressing, but its getting haphazard, she cannot remember how to spell her surname or what her address is. Her moods are very fluctuating, with a fair dose of paranoia and aggression, and no one in the world exists except her and what she thinks and wants. She lives alone, frequently refuses to allow the twice a day carers in, either by leaving the chain on or the key in the door, won't take her blood pressure medication, and when you take her to nthe GP with pains etc, suddenly becomes well again as soon as you get into the consulting room. Blood tests last month were clear, nothing physically wrong at all.
We were discharged from memory clinic as they could do no more for her, but she has recently lost a lot of weight through forgetting to eat, so the GP's Practice Nurse has involved the memory clinic again.
Today Mum had an appointment come through for a CT scan. She is very unhappy about it, and getting upset. It is also at 7pm on a Saturday night in a hospital 20 miles away, and since Mum is in bed by 6, that alone will be a big disruption for her.
Is it worth going? We have a diagnosis already, there is no medication she can take as a result of confirmation it is vascular dementia, the scan, it seems to me, won't get us any further on. Even if there is a brain tumour or other nasty, she isn't mentally well enough for surgery, and giving her more pills for anything is useless as she won't take the pills she's already prescribed anyway. The whole thing seems a bit pointless.
We see the memory clinic nurse again on the 5 th. Do I tell her we won't go for the scan? Is it worth 3 weeks of worried upset Mum and a late, disruptive night? Why is this scan so important? I can't see what we will gain from it, and I do see the stress making her a lot worse and she won't recover from any deterioration. Is it another tick box event for the local memory clinic funding returns rather than an investigation for the benefit of the patient? We've had quite a few of those in the last couple of years, and I've become somewhat cynical about the so called 'patient centred approach'
Any thoughts gratefully recieved