Never posted before as to be honest, when I read the posts I find the whole situation to be so depressing and frightening I sometimes don’t want to read them.
Mum diagnosed about 3 years ago with altzheimers, she is now 90 and has lived with me for about 35 years.
We have definitely hit a crisis point. She was initially prescribed memantine by the memory clinic and subsequently discharged unless there was any change at which point we would need another referral from the GP.
She reached a stage of significant deterioration and the GP advised stopping the memantine as it clearly wasn’t helping and to be honest, she did seem much better without it. That was early 2018.
Further decline has been progressive the past 6 months. She is on quetiapine 50mg which has been prescribed for a number of years due to insomnia. The GP upped the dosage to twice a day to try and alleviate the confusion and delusions that were happening early evening.
Things have been very up and down and despite giving mum the 2 quetiapine per day, we seem to go a few days where everything is reasonably stable then we have a few days where she seems to go totally in to melt down, always about the house, where we live, who her daughter is and where she is etc etc.
Unfortunately we lost one of our cats 28/1/19, I cannot begin to tell you the impact and effect this has had on Mum, it has been just monumentally devastating for her.
She is obsessed about the cats we have left in another house, obsessed about the fact that she only came to live with me yesterday, wants to go back to a house we lived in 40+++ years ago, wants to go back to a house that doesn’t actually exist to feed cats that don’t exist. She has got in to her head that she has thrown 2 cats out in the cold and we need to find them.
There is just no convincing her that none of the above is reality.
She is just relentless and the questions are on constant repeat then she either gets really upset and ends crying or angry and shouting at me.
I actually ended up taking her out at 9.00pm last Friday night in the wheelchair, she wanted to go to the house we left cats in but of course that doesn’t actually exist however it seemed the only way to deal with it at the time.
I had to wheel her up and down the whole area before she acknowledged that she had no idea where to go or where this house actually was.
(She usually will not go in the wheelchair direct from the house as she doesn’t want the neighbours to know she uses it)
She knows my name but insists her daughter lives somewhere else. Then she asked me if she could move in to stay with me!!
I have had to remove the keys for the front and back doors as she is trying to go out and call for cats that don’t exist. Her mobility is so poor that this is a significant risk she could fall and break a hip.
She thinks she can actually go back to previous properties we owned despite the fact that she can’t walk the length of herself. She wants to call a taxi to take her home, wherever home is in her head !!!
I have booked a holiday to leave 19.2.19.
When I manage to get away, I have a friend who comes to live with mum and look after her.
Mum is very comfortable with my friend and almost looks on her as another daughter but how can I leave her to deal with this kind of delusions.
At the same time I really need to get away and have this break; I feel like I am going wrong in the mind now and just need to get a bit of space from it all.
I am finding it almost impossible to cope with this, there is absolutely no reasoning and she doesn’t even recognise at times that I am her daughter.
There has got to be something that would alleviate the delusions.
I absolutely know the road this illness takes.
I thought that given her age I would manage to deal with it at home for whatever time she had left but realistically I am struggling so much and don’t know how much longer I can cope with it the way it is at present.
If we could just be prescribed something that would alleviate the delusions she is having that would be a massive help. She is now 90 years old and I really don’t want to think about a care facility for her at the end of her days.
The GP has agreed to make an urgent referral back to the memory clinic.
Don't know where to start really but at the moment I just want someone to come and take mum out the house.
Tonight she is still going on about the other house over the road where she lives.
She was adamant she was going back to find said cat, wheeled her miles but of course there is no other house.
She said she would go on her own and I just told her she was not leaving the house or I would ring the doctor and she would end up in the hospital.
Ended up having a major raja with her!!! Not helpful I know.
Eventually told her I would run her in the car as she couldn't walk but she had to give me directions and if we couldn't find said house she had to accept what I was telling her. Needless to say we ended up coming home with her very subdued but still adamant that she had been there last night.
Never really anticipated it would get this bad but I just can't go on with this or cope with it much longer.
I have reached a point where I feel this is destroying my life, I have no life, I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this yet I can’t stop crying as I feel so guilty about feeling this way. I know she can’t help it and has no control but how can I go on living with this.
Mum diagnosed about 3 years ago with altzheimers, she is now 90 and has lived with me for about 35 years.
We have definitely hit a crisis point. She was initially prescribed memantine by the memory clinic and subsequently discharged unless there was any change at which point we would need another referral from the GP.
She reached a stage of significant deterioration and the GP advised stopping the memantine as it clearly wasn’t helping and to be honest, she did seem much better without it. That was early 2018.
Further decline has been progressive the past 6 months. She is on quetiapine 50mg which has been prescribed for a number of years due to insomnia. The GP upped the dosage to twice a day to try and alleviate the confusion and delusions that were happening early evening.
Things have been very up and down and despite giving mum the 2 quetiapine per day, we seem to go a few days where everything is reasonably stable then we have a few days where she seems to go totally in to melt down, always about the house, where we live, who her daughter is and where she is etc etc.
Unfortunately we lost one of our cats 28/1/19, I cannot begin to tell you the impact and effect this has had on Mum, it has been just monumentally devastating for her.
She is obsessed about the cats we have left in another house, obsessed about the fact that she only came to live with me yesterday, wants to go back to a house we lived in 40+++ years ago, wants to go back to a house that doesn’t actually exist to feed cats that don’t exist. She has got in to her head that she has thrown 2 cats out in the cold and we need to find them.
There is just no convincing her that none of the above is reality.
She is just relentless and the questions are on constant repeat then she either gets really upset and ends crying or angry and shouting at me.
I actually ended up taking her out at 9.00pm last Friday night in the wheelchair, she wanted to go to the house we left cats in but of course that doesn’t actually exist however it seemed the only way to deal with it at the time.
I had to wheel her up and down the whole area before she acknowledged that she had no idea where to go or where this house actually was.
(She usually will not go in the wheelchair direct from the house as she doesn’t want the neighbours to know she uses it)
She knows my name but insists her daughter lives somewhere else. Then she asked me if she could move in to stay with me!!
I have had to remove the keys for the front and back doors as she is trying to go out and call for cats that don’t exist. Her mobility is so poor that this is a significant risk she could fall and break a hip.
She thinks she can actually go back to previous properties we owned despite the fact that she can’t walk the length of herself. She wants to call a taxi to take her home, wherever home is in her head !!!
I have booked a holiday to leave 19.2.19.
When I manage to get away, I have a friend who comes to live with mum and look after her.
Mum is very comfortable with my friend and almost looks on her as another daughter but how can I leave her to deal with this kind of delusions.
At the same time I really need to get away and have this break; I feel like I am going wrong in the mind now and just need to get a bit of space from it all.
I am finding it almost impossible to cope with this, there is absolutely no reasoning and she doesn’t even recognise at times that I am her daughter.
There has got to be something that would alleviate the delusions.
I absolutely know the road this illness takes.
I thought that given her age I would manage to deal with it at home for whatever time she had left but realistically I am struggling so much and don’t know how much longer I can cope with it the way it is at present.
If we could just be prescribed something that would alleviate the delusions she is having that would be a massive help. She is now 90 years old and I really don’t want to think about a care facility for her at the end of her days.
The GP has agreed to make an urgent referral back to the memory clinic.
Don't know where to start really but at the moment I just want someone to come and take mum out the house.
Tonight she is still going on about the other house over the road where she lives.
She was adamant she was going back to find said cat, wheeled her miles but of course there is no other house.
She said she would go on her own and I just told her she was not leaving the house or I would ring the doctor and she would end up in the hospital.
Ended up having a major raja with her!!! Not helpful I know.
Eventually told her I would run her in the car as she couldn't walk but she had to give me directions and if we couldn't find said house she had to accept what I was telling her. Needless to say we ended up coming home with her very subdued but still adamant that she had been there last night.
Never really anticipated it would get this bad but I just can't go on with this or cope with it much longer.
I have reached a point where I feel this is destroying my life, I have no life, I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this yet I can’t stop crying as I feel so guilty about feeling this way. I know she can’t help it and has no control but how can I go on living with this.