dealing with vascular dementia from overseas.

[hawk]

Hi All.

My mother has been recently diagnosed with vascular dementia.

This appears to be as a result of a heart attack late last year, and she developed symptoms very shortly thereafter. Some symptons where : counting money problems, and forgetting a lot of words. Her memory still seems to be intact, but she is 67 and so can forget things infrequently. A recent brain scan did confirm there was vascular dementia. She is still quite capable to live independently, but needs help understanding documents and infrequently forgets words.

She is currently using the exalon patch for the past month or so, and this seems to be really helping her. For instance, she is much improved in her use of vocabulary and seems to be more confident in and of herself.

Currently she is living in a rented ground floor maisonette. I have arranged for SAGA to visit her once per week, in order to check how she is doing.

She is very much improved since her heart attack and is quite happily living her own life independently. She now sports a pacemaker, which appears to have worked wonders. She also can't deal with stairs anymore, so we moved her into her current single level flat.

I know that vascular dementia is degenerative, but my mom really does seem to have improved greatly over the past year, which I cannot understand?

To the point : There is a possibility that I may move overseas in the near future. I was wondering whether anyone has experienced dealing with a similar situation? Assuming my mothers health deteriorates, are there any companies that would step in to assist her moving into a care of home of sorts? I am concerned that she may deteriorate, and need urgent help which I would not be able to immeadiatly provide. She is based in ashford, kent.

I really don't think that a care home would be a good move for her at the moment, and this is not what she wants either. Mom feels like the care homes are where you are sent to die. Whilst she will move into one if needed, she does not really have problems on a day to day basis. As such, I don't want to shove her into a care home just to make me feel better. We are busy sorting out the enduring power of attorney.

Any feedback on this would be helpful.

 

[jenniferpa]

Hi and welcome to Talking Point.

I was in a similar position to you although in my case I was already living abroad when my mother became ill.

Part of the problem is that no one has a crystal ball when it comes to any form of illness, let alone dementia. It's entirely possible that your mother may tick over quite well for many more years living in this flat. You might want (if you do leave the country) to see if you could find someone to help her on a limited basis, but even that might not be necessary. On the other hand, she could have a dramatic downturn tomorrow.

I do have one possible option that you might want to consider. Since I was living so far away, I arranged for my mother to move into an extra care 1 bedroom flat (purpose built) that was in the grounds of a nursing home. It was sort of a mid point between sheltered housing and residential care, and that worked very well until she became so immobile that she had to move into the nursing home. These things aren't all equal though so you have to not only choose carefully but also bear in mind a person's personality. To be honest, mummy would perhaps have been better off moving into something like this earlier rather than later - she would have been able to have got more out of the social aspect.

I think there are more companies being set up to offer the sort of "management" you are looking for. Personal recommendations would seem to be the thing you would want since you really have to place a lot of trust in someone to do this.

 

[hawk]

Hi

Thank for you for your kind reply.

It is really helpful to hear from someone who has experienced something similar.

When it came time to move your mom into an extra care flat, where you able to to have one point of contact who arranged for everything (ie moving mom, getting rid of items not going to fit into the smaller flat, close off council tax etc)?

I am just concerned that I will not be able to orchestrate the move very effectively from overseas.

I am really struggling with guilt over possibly moving, and honestly feel like the worst son ever for even considering "abandoning" my mom. However, I am trying to put into perspective what is also best for my family.

 

[jenniferpa]

I did it myself, I'm afraid. That is, I ended up spending about 9 weeks in the UK from September until Christmas (time from when she had her strokes to when she moved) although not all of that was contiguous. Let's put it this way - I ended up with a gold US airways FF card and a massive, truly massive, phone bill.

Whether you can find someone to do this for you will depend I think on your mother's location. I was able to arrange a lot of it from here in the USA (house clearance people, movers, utilities, council tax) but I was there while it was all going on (and that was just as well frankly - the house clearers in particularly were, shall we say, less than scrupulous about following instructions).

Do you have anyone local who you could trust (and pay) to do this for you? You are essentially employing a surrogate "child" who will follow up and make sure the arrangements you have put in place are followed. They don't necessarily have to do a great deal of physical labour, but they do have to be on the ball.

 

[Eema]

I have vascular dementia too

As I understand it, vascular dementia is different from other forms in that cognitive function is largely dependent on blood flow. Once brain cells die, they don't come back, but if you can stop the strokes, things don't necessarily have to get any worse. With any stroke, connections can reroute themselves and different brain areas can take over the functions of damaged areas. I lost all my speech a bit over a year ago, and now it's mostly back (after a lot of practice). Also, I can swear that I can feel the difference between some days and others. Some of it has to do with how well I've slept and things of that nature, but I have days when I'm foggy and days when I feel like myself.

I'm not organizing my thoughts very well at the moment, but I think my point is that dementia is never predictable, and vascular dementia is less predictable than others -- but that's a good thing. You should assume that your mom will decline over time (although she could be lucky, if they get her risk factors under control), but it might be a lot slower than in other forms of dementia, and she might be able to adjust and rebound to a certain extent. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, so you should ask your mom's doctor also.