Hospital Assessment " Care "?????

[suptowngirl]

Hi All,

I have not not been on for a while, life is very busy now. My mom has been in hospital for 5 weeks, being assessed. We have had a meeting and have been told that she needs to go into an EMI unit in a residential home.

Last time I came on I told of the bruises and hand prints on mom's hands and wrists. It seems that she had a fall and the bruises must have been where the staff had picked her up. Things seem to be worse now, this last week my mom has done nothing but sleep. Every time we visit ( which is every day ) she cannot stay awake.

On Thursday when my brother went he noticed that her left hand was very very swollen and black with bruising. He demanded to see the doctor, no-one can say how it happened. Yesterday when I got home from work at 5pm I rang my sister as I knew she was at the hospital. She told me that she had been there since 3 and she could not wake mom. The nurse and carers tried to wake her but she just wouldn't or couldn't open her eyes.
I have a 40 min drive to get there and she was still asleep when I arrived. She was trying to wake but her eyes were all glazed over when we could see them and she was crying.
She flinched every time we touched her.

I asked for the doctor to be sent for and it seems that they have been giving her all her usual medication as well as a sedative and co codramyl for pain that she hasn't got.

This now is the 3rd time they have made mistakes with her medication.
She is on Ebixa twice a day but they were only giving her 1 for a fortnight so she lost the ability to talk, she can talk but nothing makes sense. She was supposed to have had surgery on her eye but that had to be cancelled because she was given asprin instead of stopping it as we had asked.

When mom went in 5 weeks ago, we thought she was in the wrong place because she looked so well and normal but now she looks as if she fits in well with everyone else. They all shuffle around and look very ill.
We thought mom would be taken care of in there but we feel so so bad for being responsible for this.
We cannot say if she is being abused but it's heartbreaking to see your mom like this.
Can anyone give any help or reassurance please?
Thanks for taking time to read this
Suptowngirl

 

[Skye]

Hi Suptowngirl

I can't give you any help or reassurance, I haven't experienced a hospital admission yet.

I just wanted to give you all my sympathy and huge hugs. It must be awful to see your mum deteriorate like this.

Hopefully someone will have some advice for you.

Love,

 

[Lila13]

I think nurses should report falls and bruises to you before you ask.

Is there a PALS in the hospital? Patient Advice and Liaison Service

Sorry I can't help.

Lila

 

[Grannie G]

Has this been reported to your mum`s SW. I really think it should be.

 

[DeborahBlythe]

Hello, a very quick reply but just to say sorry to hear about your mum. Agree that you should ask the hospital PALS officer to get some answers for you, and if necessary, you should consider putting in a formal complaint.
Secondly, try to get the discharge to the residential home sorted as soon as you can. The surroundings of a home, even a care home, are almost always preferable for someone with dementia than a long stay on a hospital ward. It will be better for her mobilisation and social stimulus and feeding to be in a more normal setting plus there are fewer bugs in care homes, I think.
About the sleeping. That can be worrying, but sometimes my mum could sleep for England and be well and truly out for the count for the whole day but still come back to being reasonably alert as usual after a day or maybe two. Try not to worry too much about the sleeping thing. I can usually manage a 'duvet day' or two myself when time permits and I think that is the equivalent sometimes for people with dementia. Best wishes

 

[marlene]

sorry to say this but we are experiencing nearly the same treatment of my mum since she was admitted for assesment on a supposedly AD ward.. she has gone down hill really fast can hardly walk now makes little or no sense at all...she has had 2 falls, both of which happened in the bedroom..we also find that mum seems not to have the 24 hour care she needs..ie she had 3 pair of pants on the other day when i helped her to the loo 2 of which were soiled from previous days which means no one is helping her to dress or wash properly. we were going to take her out but have been told if we try she could end up being sectioned as they feel mum isnt well enough to be discharged yet.. were at our wits end too..

 

[susiewoo]

I wonder how many people reading this thread think deja vu!!!!!!!
You could be describing my Mums stay in hospital and the only hope is to keep asking questions of the staff.....ask to see her medication chart....keep a detailed diary of every visit you make................speak to the PALs person..they can help as they will start questioning the staff. on several threads you will read about people not wanting to make too much fuss when their loved ones are in care but this is the time to make that fuss.......don't hold back because the more fuss you make the keener they will be to get rid of you and will work harder to place your mother. also hassle the social worker and phone them every day and keep records of the calls.
arrange a meeting with the consultant and question the level of sedation.
I pointed out that my Mum was in real danger of falling and breaking a leg which made them reduce the sedation.

 

[Grannie G]

I`m finding these posts very disturbing.

It doesn`t seem to be about confusion, the stays are too short to cause institutionalisation, I sincerely hope it isn`t about inappropriate medication, so what can be the cause of such rapid deterioration.

I hope if ever I`m in a similar situation, I leave no stone unturned to get some answers.

 

[marlene]

we have been told that mum has to try and do things on her own ( as they say assesment to see what she can and cant do) this is fair enough but after 3 days surely they could see mum couldnt dress or wash herself properly. alot of the time there are minimal staff on and the patients who are mobile just wander about on the ward with very little supervision.. we have seen mums drug charts and had regular contact with the consultant who assures us they are doing there best for her..we insisted that mums dose of diazapam was reduced as she was in a stuper most of the time..now her antisycotic drug has been stopped and she has become very paranoid again..aricept has been reduced to 1 every other day and antidepressants dont seem to be working...we are alarmed at how unsteady on her feet she is now and her lack of understanding bout anything...up till she went into hospital 3 weeks ago we could have some sort of conversation with her..were concentrating on getting things set up at home ( care packeage ) so that we can bring her home asap...love marlene x

 

[Margarita]

she is on Ebixa twice a day but they were only giving her 1 for a fortnight so she lost the ability to talk, she can talk but nothing makes sense.

Why have they taken her of Ebixa twice a day , is it because its not working so needs EMI

 

[Lonestray]

Things still the same

Hi Suptowngirl,

I see thing are still the same with hospitals. More than five years ago my wife had a fall, broke her arm, walked in to hospital. She came out four weeks later in a w/chair.

On my daily visits I found her fast asleep falling to one side of the chair in the day room. Once she sat with urine dripping on to the floor. I had many a row with the staff for not walking her, when I tried to wake her and get her to walk the Doctor was summoned to talk to me. In expressing my fears of her losing the ability to walk he assured me she would be OK and able to walk.

When she was due to leave I was asked what assistance I required! How the hell would I know. I'd cared for her over six years, now I'd got her back incapable of walking. How would I change her pads, wash her etc?

Only later did I discover why this lifelong quiet gentle girl sleep so much, they'd dosed her up on Temazepan. When I phoned them to give them a good telling off I asked if they'd been sleepwalking her?

People don't die od Alzheimer's, but rather ignorance in the lack of caring for the needs of such patients.

It's so frustrating and madding to see so little progress over the past five years from what I read on TP.
On reflection I'd wish I'd removed her from the hospital within days of admission, as she and I would have been spared a year of sheer hell with her almost losing her life. The shame of placing her in a NH I'll have to live with, but thank God I now have her to myself to care for, and doing it my way.

There should be a program on TV where carers swop places with professionals to get an insight of what it's all about. Ever feel your talking to a brick wall?
Padraig

 

[suptowngirl]

Ebixa WAS working but after their mistake she has now gone down and as we know she will not recover from that " mistake ".

She is back on 2 now but the damage has been done and we can't do anything about that.

They were prescribing her Lorazapan last week as she was getting a bit agressive and also co- codamin twice a day for back pain or knee pains or any other pains that she didn't have.
After that was sorted she is ok now, Thank God.

One of the young carers told me today that it's good to go in and check them out because if they have a new nurse on that hasn't worked there before it's easy for them to give patients the wrong kind of medicine.
These are people we are supposed to look up to and trust.