Horrible evening

[Kikki21]

I went round to see my mum last night after her fall. I had some shopping to bring round & we decided to order a takeaway to eat with her as we have not had the opportunity to do so for a while & it is something she enjoys.

She was extremely agitated. As I have said before,she is a hoarder & there were piles of papers, a lot from years back on her table. I started to go through them saying that we needed to clear the table for food but she was going nuts at me doing so, in the end, we just put everything into a plastic bag for her to sort out stuff - only she doesn’t.

I also wanted to get rid of papers that she had written on with my name & wrong number on it & there were loads of them! In the end, I wrote my contact name & number & sellotaped it to the door. That didn’t go down very well, she threatened to hit me & that she would take it off the door.

I phoned up the doctors as I wanted to check out if they had done a home visit to check her out after her fall. They had done so & found no red flags about her falling but this is now her 3rd fall in a year. I’m not sure if the vascular part of her dementia is making her have mini strokes & causing her to fall over.

I also wanted the doctor to check her out for depression as I can see she has all the symptoms & to be honest I think she needs some anti psychotic drugs to calm down her aggression. She has also hallucinated in the past few months. She was greatly upset as she said a strange man had been in her lounge at night & she was scared so she started putting her chain on the door at night which is no good as then the carers can’t get in.

When I spoke to her this morning, she had no recollection at all that we had visited her yesterday evening. She started demanding that we visit her today & I said sorry we are working now & cannot visit.

I do feel sorry about her feeling lonely & we do try & give her solutions but she will not take us up on them & I know if we try & force it on her that she will baulk even more. The last few days have put me on a real downer as she is so difficult to deal with. I have to chase every single person/organisation up that deals with her & it is a/ very time consuming & b/ depressing.

 

[Marcelle123]

I don't know what to say or suggest, but can understand a little of what you're going through, as my mother was very stubborn and deluded about problems when she lived near us, and I just couldn't seem to get through to her.

(And we never did. In the end, Mum developed cellulitis & went to hospital and social workers decided it was unsafe for her to live alone, so we found a very good care home for her, where she's been much happier for a year, though now in 'palliative care' there, with pneumonia.)

I just wanted to say that I've read your post and to send sympathy and best wishes to you. It was indeed a horrible evening. I hope someone else may be able to post something more helpful.
Sending you good vibes & hope things get better for you. xx

 

[Lavender45]

Dealing with aggression is hard work. Is your mum under your local memory service? If so I'd talk to them about your mum's aggression and hallucinations.

From a purely practical point of view I'm assuming you have a key safe to allow the carers access. If that's the case you could change your mum's door chain to one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0...n+with+key&dpPl=1&dpID=417PgeBza9L&ref=plSrch

It works for your mum in just the same way as a normal door chain, but the lock means that if you keep a key in the safe with her front door key the carers can undo the chain from outside. It's not solving much I know, but at least you'll have the peace of mind of knowing you and the carers can get in whether the chain is on or not.

 

[Kikki21]

I don't know what to say or suggest, but can understand a little of what you're going through, as my mother was very stubborn and deluded about problems when she lived near us, and I just couldn't seem to get through to her.

(And we never did. In the end, Mum developed cellulitis & went to hospital and social workers decided it was unsafe for her to live alone, so we found a very good care home for her, where she's been much happier for a year, though now in 'palliative care' there, with pneumonia.)

I just wanted to say that I've read your post and to send sympathy and best wishes to you. It was indeed a horrible evening. I hope someone else may be able to post something more helpful.
Sending you good vibes & hope things get better for you. xx

Thank you Marcelle for your kind thoughts & good wishes. I have read your post about your mum & i’m so sorry about how things are with her. I hope she is comfortable & at least you have managed to get her out of hospital.

I cannot get through to her at all. We have tried reasoning, cajoling, joking with her. And yes i’ve got angry with her & actually sometimes that does have a result because it seems to make her calm down & realise she has upset me. Then she will tell me that she loves me & expects everything to be ok!

 

[Kikki21]

Dealing with aggression is hard work. Is your mum under your local memory service? If so I'd talk to them about your mum's aggression and hallucinations.

From a purely practical point of view I'm assuming you have a key safe to allow the carers access. If that's the case you could change your mum's door chain to one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0...n+with+key&dpPl=1&dpID=417PgeBza9L&ref=plSrch

It works for your mum in just the same way as a normal door chain, but the lock means that if you keep a key in the safe with her front door key the carers can undo the chain from outside. It's not solving much I know, but at least you'll have the peace of mind of knowing you and the carers can get in whether the chain is on or not.

Thank you Lavender. I will have to measure that up as my mum has an extremely narrow space for the chain at her front door. She tends to put the chain on at night but there is a note asking her not to put the chain on by the carers.
I may have to take it off altogether.

Otherwise it would be a case of knocking her door down. This happened earlier in the year when she fell over so the fire brigade had to put a panel through her back door to get in. It is still boarded up because i’m not unconvinced it won’t happen again.
Yes she is under the local memory clinic & the lady there is very helpful. They have recently put her on mememine but I think it’s too late for that.
There has been a huge deterioration in her short term memory over the last few weeks. She can’t remember events from the day itself from half an hour ago never mind the day before.

She keeps saying she is not being fed but this is untrue. Her carers write down what she has to eat in the log book. She doesn’t believe them
& says they just write stories down & make things up.

I will speak to the memory clinic about her aggression & hallucinations.
Next job is to sort out POA so need to ring the doctor’s secretary for that & see what I need to do.

I’ve left a phone message to her social worker chasing up better telecare for my mum as it is clear she is not pressing her wrist alarm for help as she forgets that is what it is there for!

 

[MaNaAk]

I went round to see my mum last night after her fall. I had some shopping to bring round & we decided to order a takeaway to eat with her as we have not had the opportunity to do so for a while & it is something she enjoys.

She was extremely agitated. As I have said before,she is a hoarder & there were piles of papers, a lot from years back on her table. I started to go through them saying that we needed to clear the table for food but she was going nuts at me doing so, in the end, we just put everything into a plastic bag for her to sort out stuff - only she doesn’t.

I also wanted to get rid of papers that she had written on with my name & wrong number on it & there were loads of them! In the end, I wrote my contact name & number & sellotaped it to the door. That didn’t go down very well, she threatened to hit me & that she would take it off the door.

I phoned up the doctors as I wanted to check out if they had done a home visit to check her out after her fall. They had done so & found no red flags about her falling but this is now her 3rd fall in a year. I’m not sure if the vascular part of her dementia is making her have mini strokes & causing her to fall over.

I also wanted the doctor to check her out for depression as I can see she has all the symptoms & to be honest I think she needs some anti psychotic drugs to calm down her aggression. She has also hallucinated in the past few months. She was greatly upset as she said a strange man had been in her lounge at night & she was scared so she started putting her chain on the door at night which is no good as then the carers can’t get in.

When I spoke to her this morning, she had no recollection at all that we had visited her yesterday evening. She started demanding that we visit her today & I said sorry we are working now & cannot visit.

I do feel sorry about her feeling lonely & we do try & give her solutions but she will not take us up on them & I know if we try & force it on her that she will baulk even more. The last few days have put me on a real downer as she is so difficult to deal with. I have to chase every single person/organisation up that deals with her & it is a/ very time consuming & b/ depressing.

Dear Kikki,

Have the doctors checked your mum for UTI or as in my dad's case low sodium? If there is a problem with her sodium then the doctor needs to look at her other medication.

MaNaAk

 

[Kikki21]

Dear Kikki,

Have the doctors checked your mum for UTI or as in my dad's case low sodium? If there is a problem with her sodium then the doctor needs to look at her other medication.

MaNaAk

Thank you for your reply MaNaAk - a spell in hospital has revealed low sodium levels which have been low for quite some time according to her doctor. They don’t seem interested in raising them up though as it doesn’t look like they are treating her for that. At the moment she has a chest infection & she had some seizures the other day & was readmitted to hospital. She should never have been discharged in the first place but that’s another story!