Haven't posted on here for a few months, mum has vascular dementia - we made the decision to move her into a care home which went really well after months of worry and mum not wanting this to ever happen to her and all the resulting guilt that went alongside. Perfect timing as a few weeks later I discovered I was pregnant and also mum had another series of TIA's and became doubly incontinent - all this may just have broken us had mum not been in the lovely care home.
It's been 5 month now and the care home can't cope any longer, mum is violent I just had a call today to say she has been attacking both staff and residents again. The doctor has prescribed antibiotics today in case of a UTI - no one can get a sample from her, personal care is almost impossible for the home on most days, on Sunday she was covered in faeces and two staff wrapped her into a blanket while two others cleaned the best they could. There is a sedative prescribed for use as and when but inspite of an increased dose it doesn't seem to be helping.
When I saw mum yesterday she couldn't balance on her own, her hunch and head hanging which has increased over the past month was at the point where she couldn't look up to see us and we had to hold both her arms to help her balance enough to walk at all. Today they've told me she is even further over literally hanging her head between her knees, the doctors have told the care home that dementia sufferers often return to the fetal positon - this might not matter if they could get mum to lie in a bed but she won't so is hanging in a chair starting to fall off of it and hitting anyone who comes near to try to stop her falling.
We had a social service review a couple of weeks ago as the home said they couldn't cope, there was a medication change then and the home were asked to cope for a few more weeks while they saw if the medication helped. Clearly it hasn't and when they called social services today they were told the social worker was going on leave for the next 2 1/2 weeks and would start to look into a nursing home or something else when she returns. The care home manager managed to get a new antipsycotic prescribed today - she said if that doesn't change anything she is really concerned that there might be an incident which is too severe and then they'd have to ask fo rmum to be removed straight away to the locked mental health unit at our hospital - where she could be properly sedated.
I'm so heart broken it has come to this, that these lovely staff are trapped with my mum hitting out at them and doing what she is doing, that the other residents are suffering and that my mum who was gentle dignified and would never have done anything like this, stripped of every dignity, with no element of life to enjoy. Just keep asking myself when it will all end, how much more does she have to suffer, I wish she could just slip away now. As I write that it seems the worst thing to write about my mother, but what has she got left, how many months of being scared and angry and hitting out at anyone who tries to help her has she got to go through. i can't remember the last time she really had any pleasure in even a momment.
There is no win here for anyone, the kids are grieving my mum is lost inside the emptiness of her mind it's all so heartbreakingly desperatley sad
It's been 5 month now and the care home can't cope any longer, mum is violent I just had a call today to say she has been attacking both staff and residents again. The doctor has prescribed antibiotics today in case of a UTI - no one can get a sample from her, personal care is almost impossible for the home on most days, on Sunday she was covered in faeces and two staff wrapped her into a blanket while two others cleaned the best they could. There is a sedative prescribed for use as and when but inspite of an increased dose it doesn't seem to be helping.
When I saw mum yesterday she couldn't balance on her own, her hunch and head hanging which has increased over the past month was at the point where she couldn't look up to see us and we had to hold both her arms to help her balance enough to walk at all. Today they've told me she is even further over literally hanging her head between her knees, the doctors have told the care home that dementia sufferers often return to the fetal positon - this might not matter if they could get mum to lie in a bed but she won't so is hanging in a chair starting to fall off of it and hitting anyone who comes near to try to stop her falling.
We had a social service review a couple of weeks ago as the home said they couldn't cope, there was a medication change then and the home were asked to cope for a few more weeks while they saw if the medication helped. Clearly it hasn't and when they called social services today they were told the social worker was going on leave for the next 2 1/2 weeks and would start to look into a nursing home or something else when she returns. The care home manager managed to get a new antipsycotic prescribed today - she said if that doesn't change anything she is really concerned that there might be an incident which is too severe and then they'd have to ask fo rmum to be removed straight away to the locked mental health unit at our hospital - where she could be properly sedated.
I'm so heart broken it has come to this, that these lovely staff are trapped with my mum hitting out at them and doing what she is doing, that the other residents are suffering and that my mum who was gentle dignified and would never have done anything like this, stripped of every dignity, with no element of life to enjoy. Just keep asking myself when it will all end, how much more does she have to suffer, I wish she could just slip away now. As I write that it seems the worst thing to write about my mother, but what has she got left, how many months of being scared and angry and hitting out at anyone who tries to help her has she got to go through. i can't remember the last time she really had any pleasure in even a momment.
There is no win here for anyone, the kids are grieving my mum is lost inside the emptiness of her mind it's all so heartbreakingly desperatley sad