Hi Guys,
My position is that Mum who's 87 with a degree of vascular dementia had been pottering along quite fine at home until the beginning of July when she ended up in hospital following a couple of lacunar strokes.
(These lacunar strokes, so far as I understand are relatively small strokes which knock you off your feet, but do not generally have the life changing effects of a regular stroke).
The hospital patched her up, gave her extra medication digoxin and aspirin, and after a week or so she was fit to go home. However Social Workers picking up on her condition said she was too demented to be allowed to go home alone and insisted we put her in a Care Home.
This we did and being new to Care Homes I didn't really worry when she appeared to be fading fast, in the first week her TV remote control went missing, then someone stole her magnifying glass, so she was spending a lot of time alone in her room looking out of the window, no telly to stimulate her and unable to read the paper (I bought her a new magnifier and the care home keep promising to find her remote control).
The first day she was in the Care Home she had spoken glowingly of lunch and I hadn't visited during meal times as I didn't want to interrupt.
As I say mum then seemed to deteriorate quite progressively, in the first few days after the novelty had worn off she begged me to get her out, then she seemed suddenly to accept it, to have become institutionalised. After a fortnight she could hardly string a sentence together.
Now 3 weeks later she is back in hospital having collapsed with anaemia and all becomes clear.
She isn't eating properly or has internal bleeding, so the blood becomes low in haemoglobin and can't carry oxygen to the brain, so mum appears more demented, and her heart works faster and erratically giving rise to more vascular dementia.
I think the moral is be alert to the perils of anaemia, it can cause or exacerbate vascular dementia?
Dave
My position is that Mum who's 87 with a degree of vascular dementia had been pottering along quite fine at home until the beginning of July when she ended up in hospital following a couple of lacunar strokes.
(These lacunar strokes, so far as I understand are relatively small strokes which knock you off your feet, but do not generally have the life changing effects of a regular stroke).
The hospital patched her up, gave her extra medication digoxin and aspirin, and after a week or so she was fit to go home. However Social Workers picking up on her condition said she was too demented to be allowed to go home alone and insisted we put her in a Care Home.
This we did and being new to Care Homes I didn't really worry when she appeared to be fading fast, in the first week her TV remote control went missing, then someone stole her magnifying glass, so she was spending a lot of time alone in her room looking out of the window, no telly to stimulate her and unable to read the paper (I bought her a new magnifier and the care home keep promising to find her remote control).
The first day she was in the Care Home she had spoken glowingly of lunch and I hadn't visited during meal times as I didn't want to interrupt.
As I say mum then seemed to deteriorate quite progressively, in the first few days after the novelty had worn off she begged me to get her out, then she seemed suddenly to accept it, to have become institutionalised. After a fortnight she could hardly string a sentence together.
Now 3 weeks later she is back in hospital having collapsed with anaemia and all becomes clear.
She isn't eating properly or has internal bleeding, so the blood becomes low in haemoglobin and can't carry oxygen to the brain, so mum appears more demented, and her heart works faster and erratically giving rise to more vascular dementia.
I think the moral is be alert to the perils of anaemia, it can cause or exacerbate vascular dementia?
Dave
