My mother has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she’s had a CT scan to confirm this. She lives on her own and is coping fairly well (so we think) but lately she’s been having hallucinations and keeps forgetting my dad has died.
I’m the only daughter of our family to live closest, my brother lives up north and my sister lives in Kent and doesn’t work. I work nearly full time and the late night phone calls are becoming a problem. She keeps saying she doesn’t want to be on her own and she’s terrified as she thinks the gate posts are men watching her house. We don’t want to put her into care but we’re at a loss of what to do. I’ve started to suffer from anxiety as I sit at home at night and wait for the phone calls. I’d be grateful for any advice. Thank you
Hello lovely, & welcome to TP.
I’m going to say that my own experience with Aged Mother & dementia means I’m a little brutal on the front of staying overnight with a person with hallucinations & dementia.
I found that me staying over meant that social services felt that it wasn’t necessary for them to action care more; & as I was basically sorting out the house to be more habitable the assessments repeatedly stated how clean & tidy it was &how well mum was coping!
Not the reality of it at all.
Carers were arranged by us & social services & cancelled by Mum repeatedly. The social worker told me repeatedly that a crisis point would have to be reached. But I didn’t want that to happen, so I continued down the stay over & run myself into the ground route!
to cut a long story short - that awful crisis point had to happen & did; & it was only then that Mum no longer could cancel carers after another couple of issues!
I’m afraid you have to face this dementia reality without emotion & cold logic - which like me I expect you are unable to do.
No matter what you do your Mum now needs professional help, if she won’t accept it & still has been deemed to have capacity I’m afraid all you can do is contact 111 when she rings you or the local on call 24hr mental health team in your area. You can google your local Clinical Mental Health Team & a 24 hr on call number is given.
I’m afraid that the due process that Social services require often excludes family experiences & evidence - social services have to see it for themselves ! Oh yes this experience has been repeated many times
Document each hallucination & phone call by calling 111. This will be sent to the GP.
Email the GP each time with your concerns, copy in the diagnostic mental health team & the social worker.
My mums hallucinations are made worse with UTI & I now just email the GP requesting a urine test. By law they have to respond within 48 hours.
it’s been a battle & not the pleasantest experience, but I have come to the conclusion that you have to let the crisis happen. Believe me it angers me that this is the system;but having lived with Mums poor mental health most of my life I am now resigned to the fact that this is it.
You could move in with your Mum & the hallucinations wont stop, her mobility will eventually be an issue along with continence issues. Unless you are able to meet all these physical & mental needs, balance your marriage, children & job, as for a social life we’ll forget that those even exist as there isn’t enough hours in the day or days in the week; sadly you need to step back a little & logically reassess the reality of the situation for a while.
Yes my lovely I have done this several times throughout both my parents dementia journey. It’s hard to do but necessary, please believe me.
Your Mum is obviously deemed to have capacity , which means she’ll make some poor decisions & these will have consequences. You have to provide social services through 111 call outs & repeated emails of poor decisions & dementia related issues evidence. It is only then you have the leverage to say “ this is a care issue as a family we can’t cope - this requires more than we can provide”
I truly wish you good luck & keep posting on here. The help & at times hard to swallow advice has been invaluable.
Eventually a lot of carers on here reach that breaking point & we all have similar experiences in one way & another.
Your Mums diagnosis means you have a starting point, her denial of diagnosis isn’t unusual. But at the end of the day it’s just naming the health issues, a group of letters forming a word. Those issues haven’t suddenly just appeared just become more noticeable & that does require medical action from the very overstretched services.
Please don’t fall out with your siblings,you are really going to need each other’s support in whatever form.
If you need to speak at anytime please message me
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