I haven't been on the site for a while but the inevitable happened and my mum's morning carer found her lying on the floor a fortnight ago. It's been a terrible year with mum's condition deteriorating on a weekly basis until a couple of months ago when the downhill trajectory seemed to get dramatically worse.
Anyway, after months of wasting my time with mum's GP, CPN and SW she is finally safe in hospital and won't be going home. It took the hospital about ten days of endless tests to accept that what they were seeing really was mum's baseline and that that is more or less how she's been. Several nurses have expressed their surprise that mum's accident happened at home because her dementia is so bad.
The reason I'm posting is to say 'thank you' for the single most useful piece of advice I have gleaned from the dozens of books, articles, websites etc I have read since mum's diagnosis...that advice was on here and suggested that teddy bears can bring comfort to the PWD. I can vouch for it now.
I was a bit dubious when I took the teddy to the hospital the first time I visited mum. When I gave it to her I asked her to look after it for me and keep it safe and, as soon as she held it, she wanted one of her own so I said she could keep that one. Watching her with it does bring home how bad her dementia is but there is no doubt that it has brought her comfort and helps her to focus when her delusions/ hallucinations are making her anxious and when her stress and anxiety levels make her somewhat bad tempered stroking the bear calms her down a lot.
I'm so grateful to all the people who've taken the time to put advice on here and wanted to make sure the teddy advice was passed on.
Anyway, after months of wasting my time with mum's GP, CPN and SW she is finally safe in hospital and won't be going home. It took the hospital about ten days of endless tests to accept that what they were seeing really was mum's baseline and that that is more or less how she's been. Several nurses have expressed their surprise that mum's accident happened at home because her dementia is so bad.
The reason I'm posting is to say 'thank you' for the single most useful piece of advice I have gleaned from the dozens of books, articles, websites etc I have read since mum's diagnosis...that advice was on here and suggested that teddy bears can bring comfort to the PWD. I can vouch for it now.
I was a bit dubious when I took the teddy to the hospital the first time I visited mum. When I gave it to her I asked her to look after it for me and keep it safe and, as soon as she held it, she wanted one of her own so I said she could keep that one. Watching her with it does bring home how bad her dementia is but there is no doubt that it has brought her comfort and helps her to focus when her delusions/ hallucinations are making her anxious and when her stress and anxiety levels make her somewhat bad tempered stroking the bear calms her down a lot.
I'm so grateful to all the people who've taken the time to put advice on here and wanted to make sure the teddy advice was passed on.