Advise about vascular dementia please

[Earthgirl72]

Firstly, please forgive what I'm sure will be a very rambly post.

I look after my dad, 74 with vascular dementia. He lives on his own at the moment, I live less than 5 minutes away and call him / see him everyday.

The problem is, we were given the diagnosis, but that was it. It's vascular dementia, as a result of a stroke he had that nobody knew about. (The consultant placed the stroke around when my Mum died suddenly, we knew dad was having problems finding the right words but that was about it)

He had a TIA a couple years ago, and we thought that he had had another a couple weeks ago but that turned out to be confusion due to an undiagnosed UTI.

For a couple weeks before that, Dad was going to sleep very early in the evening, and despite his knowing that I call every night at 8.30 he didn't think to call to say that he was feeling unwell and was going to bed.

Today, I popped down to see if he wanted dinner with us, and he had gone to bed and was sleeping very heavily at 3.30pm. Woke him up and he said that he had been up all night coughing and was exhausted, even though he had been with us last night and hadn't been coughing at all. Left him getting up (or so we thought) but when we took dinner down, he'd gone back to bed again.

Could the sleepiness mean that he might have another infection? It's not at all like him to do that. Am I worrying over nothing? I have no idea what I'm doing, what is 'normal', what isn't.. There's no instruction manual and when I have spoken to his Dr in the past they have been quite.. well.. that's another story.

For the most part Dad is quite well, apart from talking to the odd cheeseburger and seeing my dead mother in my oven

Any advise would be gratefully received!

 

[Selinacroft]

Hi Earthgirl
I 'm also caring for Dad with a stroke history, major stroke back in 2009 and perhaps TIAs since-it is so difficult to tell if mixed up with other illness. Dad sounds like he is further down the road than yours and appears asleep most of the time but he says he just has his eyes closed- so hard to tell the difference.
Dad hardly touches his bed and some mornings the bed is completely undisturbed.
I know fatigue and sleeping more does seem to be part of the progression. Has your Dad seen the memory clinic for a formal diagnosis.
It is probably nothing to be concerned about with your Dad but perhaps mention it to D/N if he sees one or give the GP a quick call to see if they would like to see your Dad for an appointment. At least you have done everything possible then.

 

[Earthgirl72]

Thank you Selinacroft

The not very helpful answer to that is I don't know. Dad's diagnosis, such as it was, was a bit out of order (or so it felt)

We had been worried about his memory, and the wrong words and the like for a while and were trying to get him to go to the Dr when he had a bit of a funny turn. We took him to the Drs, they said it might be a TIA so he was sent for a scan and other tests.

We got an appointment to see a consultant, who showed us the images from the scan and that showed that he had had a quite major stroke that at the front of his brain. We were told vascular dementia and that was that to be honest. I have no idea if that was at the memory clinic, and since then Dad has just had one visit from the local mental health nurse. He is ok, for the most part, pretty well in fact. It would just be nice to have a bit more knowledge of what we are dealing with and how best to support him moving onwards.

Sorry again for being vague.

 

[fizzie]

As his behaviour at the moment is not typical I would suspect some kind of infection / illness and I would see the doc pronto and ask for an MOT - blood pressure, urine and chest check - just to be on the safe side.
It could be that his time clock has gone and needs a bit of restructuring - of course the clock change coming will confuse all that again. We had to get quite rigid around the times of doing things and initiate a lot of prompts and a lot of visits to keep out of bed at the wrong times lol Day centre helps enormously with that too - time out at a lunch club keeps the day clock in order !!!!

 

[Nellybell]

Hi Earthgirl
As fizzle has said, defo get him checked out with a GP for any infections that may be causing this. My dad has VD and his body clock went completely awry, sleeping in the day, almost impossible to keep him awake. I tried taking him out for trips but because we live in the sticks it always involved the car so he promptly fell asleep within minutes of being in it (he has poor mobility due to arthritis so cannot walk far). He would be up most of the night as well as he had lost all concept of time of day, he would think it was morning or afternoon at 2am in the morning and no matter what we told him, he thought we were lying to him! We didn't get any help really when he got his diagnosis. His GP referred him, where they did an MRI scan, we saw the consultant for the results where we were told he had VD and that there was no treatment for it and basically left to get on with it. His GP was good with him and always told me I could call him if I had any concerns. We struggled on mainly because I didn't know whet help was out there until the crisis hit, dad broke his leg and ended up in hospital for a month. He took several downhill steps since then and we have just moved him into a CH where he will hopefully be safe and happy.

Sorry for the ramble but just wanted you to know you are not on your own and erratic sleep patterns do seem to be a fairly common part of dementia, but please do get him checked over by his GP

Nell x

 

[Amy in the US]

There is lots of good information available on the Alzheimer's Society website. When you have a chance, you might have a read there and see if anything is useful.

Here are some links to get you started:

About vascular dementia specifically: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=161

General info on caring: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/caring

Info on the progression of different types of dementia, including vascular: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=133

And I would DEFINITELY get him checked out by the GP. Recurrent infections are common in PWD (persons with dementia) and if you feel he is not himself, then trust your instincts.

Best wishes to you.

 

[Earthgirl72]

Thank you all for the replies, I really appreciate you all taking the time out when you're all busy.

Managed to get dad a Dr's appt for today, which is a miracle in itself.

After sleeping all day yesterday, i went down and checked on him and gave him a cuppa and some soup as he had no appetite. He said that he was going to get an early night.

Called again today to let him know about the Dr's and he really doesn't sound right, says that he 'isn't right' and that he has stomach ache and a pain in his right side.

Offered to either go down and stay with him until it's time to go to Dr's or have him come up to us but typically, he's happy to stay on his own. Will take some stew down in a bit and do a fly-by check