Hello all, hope you can help. Mum has just turned 93 and was diagnosed with vascular dementia and alzheimers about 7 years ago. She's been in a care home for about 4.5 years and we moved her a couple of weeks ago to a nursing home, because she'd suddenly become bedridden and the bed sore she'd apparently developed a few weeks earlier had become "stage 4" so her nursing needs were severe.
She can't move, can barely speak and eats and drinks only pureed food which has to be spoon fed to her. She's skin and bones.
But she hasn't settled in the nursing home and tonight she's managed to say a few words to me that i could make out - along the lines of "please help me", "I want to go home", "I don't like it here" and "I just want to be with you".
All truly heartbreaking and I feel I'm failing her.
The nurses in the new home all seem lovely and they have spoken to the GP twice over the last few days to up her meds - she's now on max dose of co-codamol plus morphine for the once a day bedsore dressing change and (as of today) additional low dose (2.5ml?) of morphine before they turn her.
But Mum was very agitated and very distressed again tonight. Is that pain? Or could it be something else (e.g. unfamiliarity with the new nursing home, new faces etc)?
My friend has said her Mum went on to morphine patches which helped a lot. Should I insist on them?
Oh God, please will someone help - I can't bear to see her suffer like this. It's just awful (well, you all know this already, don't you!?) and I don't really know what to do. x
She can't move, can barely speak and eats and drinks only pureed food which has to be spoon fed to her. She's skin and bones.
But she hasn't settled in the nursing home and tonight she's managed to say a few words to me that i could make out - along the lines of "please help me", "I want to go home", "I don't like it here" and "I just want to be with you".
All truly heartbreaking and I feel I'm failing her.
The nurses in the new home all seem lovely and they have spoken to the GP twice over the last few days to up her meds - she's now on max dose of co-codamol plus morphine for the once a day bedsore dressing change and (as of today) additional low dose (2.5ml?) of morphine before they turn her.
But Mum was very agitated and very distressed again tonight. Is that pain? Or could it be something else (e.g. unfamiliarity with the new nursing home, new faces etc)?
My friend has said her Mum went on to morphine patches which helped a lot. Should I insist on them?
Oh God, please will someone help - I can't bear to see her suffer like this. It's just awful (well, you all know this already, don't you!?) and I don't really know what to do. x