Confused about what stage my mother is at

[Tiggerdwarfy]

Hi, my mother is about to turn 80 and was diagnosed with vascular dementia about 3 years ago. At the moment she is sleeping virtually all the time. Dad has to get her up for breakfast and about an hour after that she is fast asleep. He then wakes her up for lunch and she falls asleep again until about 4.30pm. They then have dinner and she goes to her bed at 9.30pm.

She is unsteady on her feet, she is not incontinent and she can still remember our names but doesn't know what day it is and can't remember where they are going if dad takes her in the car somewhere. He has to keep telling her where they are going.

She isn't aggressive and hasn't wandered off anywhere, probably because she is always asleep.

My brother is coming over to Scotland from America with is 2 year old in 8 weeks time so that my parents get a chance to see both my brother and his daughter as he doesn't get over often. On Saturday, when my husband and I were visiting, she said that she wasn't sure that she could live for another 8 weeks. She has no medical basis to say that and hasn't been told by a doctor that she is nearing the end of her life.

If you read about all the stages I honestly can't work out which one she is at which is why I thought I would post this message to see if anyone can help.

 

[Beate]

You probably can't work it out because every person is different, the stages aren't set in stone and a person can have characteristics of several stages at once. It's not like, yesterday she was at stage 3 and now she has got to stage 4. Some people don't become incontinent, some early on. Some people always recognise their loved ones, at least by face, and others lose this skill at some point. In other words, I find all this stages business terribly unhelpful.

 

[AlsoConfused]

What you'd like is an outside, informed view of the future for your Mum, right?

You probably know - in your heart of hearts - that you're not going to get anything that really answers all your questions ... but you may be hoping for just a bit more certainty than you've got right now.

How about sitting quietly for a bit, working out what you really want to know and why it would be helpful to you to know it? After you've done that, maybe you could contact your Mum's GP or Community Psychiatric Nurse and ask their help in answering the questions you've got? In addition to getting some answers you may feel more settled about the others for which there are no answers ... even the experts don't know and can't predict.

 

[jjude]

What you'd like is an outside, informed view of the future for your Mum, right?

You probably know - in your heart of hearts - that you're not going to get anything that really answers all your questions ... but you may be hoping for just a bit more certainty than you've got right now.

How about sitting quietly for a bit, working out what you really want to know and why it would be helpful to you to know it? After you've done that, maybe you could contact your Mum's GP or Community Psychiatric Nurse and ask their help in answering the questions you've got? In addition to getting some answers you may feel more settled about the others for which there are no answers ... even the experts don't know and can't predict.

I have no answers for you I can only tell you about my experience. I learnt to accept that my dad was dying from the disease and once I had stopped trying to second guess what stage he was up to I found some peace of mind and just went with the flow and treated each day as his last. No doctor would or could make a prediction for us and again I learnt to accept that. My thoughts are with you