Frustrating

Jassac

New member
May 6, 2019
9
0
My mum is 87, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last October but she is showing more symptoms of Dementia with Lewy bodies. I presume she is in the middle to late stages, as she has no sense of time, or can't remember what she has eaten within a few minutes.
She cannot stand unaided and shuffles round the bungalow with a walker, outside she is in a wheelchair. Her mobility problems started about 9 years ago, then she became incontinent, Now she can't tell when she urinates. Last night was the first night this week, she hadn't wet the bed. She wears disposable pants and pads but takes then off and then sits on the bed.
When we are at home she sleeps a lot, she cannot follow TV programmes anymore. She doesn't like going to bed as she believes that we have put her in this room that's not hers. We've lived in this bungalow for 12 years, so obviously she can't remember and she says that there are all these people in her room.
She asks for her family, why they don't visit her and I keep telling her they have all passed away, she complains there isn't enough people in the bungalow , there is myself, my brother and my mum. She was one of six, so there were 8 of them including her parents but when we take her out she complains of all the noise, she can't stand children anymore either and she is liable to tell them to shut up.
We have photos up of her and my dad but she doesn't recognise him and says awful things about him. They met when they were 17 and were together until 2010 when my dad passed away.
She doesn't know any many children she has (3)
Another problem is that every so often she has these episodes when she feels sick and is sick even though she hasn't ate anything. Sometimes she has got out of bed and collapsed, the first couple of times we took her to the hospital but after a few hours she was fine so the hospital said there were nothing wrong with her, these were before the dementia diagnosis. Now when she has them we just leave her in bed but with each one she doesn't fully recover. She had a small one the other week when we were out and she couldn't get into the car, it took us 20 minutes to get her in. She went really vacant looking. She can also be quite nasty with what she says.
She is on patches from the memory clinic and they will assess her in January again. Goodness knows what she will be like then. We've asked what stage she might be in but no one will tell us.
 

Jaded'n'faded

Registered User
Jan 23, 2019
5,259
0
High Peak
I could certainly hazard a guess as to what stage she's at (but I won't because I am not medically qualified) as your mum sounds very much like mine.

What no one can tell you is how long each stage will last, or the question I ask myself - 'How long does my mother have to exist in this terrible, miserable state?'

The 'funny turns' you describe sound very much like TIAs (mini strokes) - have a search on the site for threads where others have described these. As you've noticed, there comes a point when doctors/hospitals are not terribly interested and any changes will just be blamed on the progress of the dementia. Sadly there isn't anything that will help at this stage - we can only watch our loved ones decline.

It's very hard - take care and try and get some time away from the situation.
 

Jassac

New member
May 6, 2019
9
0
I could certainly hazard a guess as to what stage she's at (but I won't because I am not medically qualified) as your mum sounds very much like mine.

What no one can tell you is how long each stage will last, or the question I ask myself - 'How long does my mother have to exist in this terrible, miserable state?'

The 'funny turns' you describe sound very much like TIAs (mini strokes) - have a search on the site for threads where others have described these. As you've noticed, there comes a point when doctors/hospitals are not terribly interested and any changes will just be blamed on the progress of the dementia. Sadly there isn't anything that will help at this stage - we can only watch our loved ones decline.

It's very hard - take care and try and get some time away from the situation.

Thank you I will look at the TIAs threads