Hi, I’m new here - sorry long post alert.
My mum is 85 and has had increasing memory loss for years. She was aware of it a few years ago spoke to her GP who fobbed it off as normal ageing and being down because my sister had passed away. She lives with my dad who is a fit and active 87.
She’s shown erratic behaviour in the past but it is getting more and more problematic. Not sure if these are all dementia symptoms but she has stopped making any meals, lost interest in her appearance, lost her ‘tact’ filter (eg constantly telling my expectant niece that she might miscarry her baby, repeatedly telling me that my dad had affairs when I was young, telling my kids she wants to die). She’s also having fraught episodes with my dad, where she accuses him of moving her things, hiding her underwear etc and then putting them back again. She’s also started shredding stuff. Lots of it. Last year she arbitrarily threw away all her prescription medications saying they were out of date (they weren’t) and my dad had to hurriedly get replacements from the pharmacy.
When you chat to her she seems perfectly lucid, maybe a little dotty about names for things, but you could meet her and have a conversation and all would seem relatively well.
The problem is that she hates my dad, and has done all my adult life. They co-exist in their house, and although he makes her food, washes her clothes etc she won’t allow him to go with her to any doctor’s appointments, or even tell him what has been said on the phone if she gets a call about a blood test result etc.
I’ve been doing their shopping since March 2020, and although she came to our house a couple of times last summer between lockdowns, the only other times she’s been out has been to medical appointments and to get her Covid jabs. She now refuses to even come to ours to have a coffee in the garden, she says she just wants to curl up and wait for it all to go away.
So my problem is, if we get her to talk to her GP there is no way she would allow my dad to go with her to explain l what has been happening. There’s a slim chance she might let me go with her, but because I’ve not experienced her mood swings first hand it would be hearsay and we would deny it. There’s a chance dad has exaggerated but there have been lots of other things my sister and I have seen.
I’m at a bit of a loss what to do. I think without my dad relaying the day-to-day behaviour changes I think they would again just fob her off as having old age related memory loss.
Any advice or suggestions would be very welcome, thanks for reading ?
ps I have LPA care for both my parents
My mum is 85 and has had increasing memory loss for years. She was aware of it a few years ago spoke to her GP who fobbed it off as normal ageing and being down because my sister had passed away. She lives with my dad who is a fit and active 87.
She’s shown erratic behaviour in the past but it is getting more and more problematic. Not sure if these are all dementia symptoms but she has stopped making any meals, lost interest in her appearance, lost her ‘tact’ filter (eg constantly telling my expectant niece that she might miscarry her baby, repeatedly telling me that my dad had affairs when I was young, telling my kids she wants to die). She’s also having fraught episodes with my dad, where she accuses him of moving her things, hiding her underwear etc and then putting them back again. She’s also started shredding stuff. Lots of it. Last year she arbitrarily threw away all her prescription medications saying they were out of date (they weren’t) and my dad had to hurriedly get replacements from the pharmacy.
When you chat to her she seems perfectly lucid, maybe a little dotty about names for things, but you could meet her and have a conversation and all would seem relatively well.
The problem is that she hates my dad, and has done all my adult life. They co-exist in their house, and although he makes her food, washes her clothes etc she won’t allow him to go with her to any doctor’s appointments, or even tell him what has been said on the phone if she gets a call about a blood test result etc.
I’ve been doing their shopping since March 2020, and although she came to our house a couple of times last summer between lockdowns, the only other times she’s been out has been to medical appointments and to get her Covid jabs. She now refuses to even come to ours to have a coffee in the garden, she says she just wants to curl up and wait for it all to go away.
So my problem is, if we get her to talk to her GP there is no way she would allow my dad to go with her to explain l what has been happening. There’s a slim chance she might let me go with her, but because I’ve not experienced her mood swings first hand it would be hearsay and we would deny it. There’s a chance dad has exaggerated but there have been lots of other things my sister and I have seen.
I’m at a bit of a loss what to do. I think without my dad relaying the day-to-day behaviour changes I think they would again just fob her off as having old age related memory loss.
Any advice or suggestions would be very welcome, thanks for reading ?
ps I have LPA care for both my parents