Mum getting depressed. Worried

[Julid001]

Hi, quite worried about mum. To cut a long story short, my father passed away 4 months ago. My mum is 82. Mum who has early stage dementia, has become recently over the past week, angry, agitated , very upset and feels abandoned by her friends. Every evening she's asking me the question why is nobody here, she's on her own and why has nobody been to see her and she cant cant cope with it. She has even gone as far as saying she doesn't want to go on and feels like she wants to slit her throat she feels so bad. She's started going to a day centre 3 times a week, my brother sees her 2-3 times in an evening and I see her once week, during the week due to location and work committments. She's actually right to a degree about the friends, they are elderly with their own issues, but they never visited in the evenings anyway. I feel that she's struggling with accepting my fathers death ontop of the dementia. Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

[Amethyst59]

Ooh, your poor mum. I was widowed at 49, and it knocked me for six, coping with it at 82, and with dementia too, must be so hard. It could be that the reality of your dad’s passing is just becoming real. You can feel pretty numb, and everything unreal for a while. I understand that you cannot visit any more than you are, but I wonder if this might help? When my dad died, I used to ring mum at about 10.00 in the evening, just to say goodnight. She had a phone by the bed, and would be settled in bed by then. It gave her something to look forward to, and helped to make her feel not so alone. It must have been for nearly a year that we did it.
It’s good your mum is getting out three times a week. I know that activity has to be balanced with time to rest for older people. Does your local Age UK offer a befriending service? It might be that someone could call in on a day she is at home, or maybe you could use a cleaner, who could call on a quiet day in her week, so that she has some company most days? Again, Age UK in our area offer a subsidised cleaning service.
Please keep posting, I am sure that other people will have suggestions too.

 

[canary]

Im guessing that she is forgetting the things that she did and the people she has seen during the day, so when she gets to the evening she feels that this is what it is like the whole time.
Maybe antidepressants would help - speak to her GP.

 

[Julid001]

Ooh, your poor mum. I was widowed at 49, and it knocked me for six, coping with it at 82, and with dementia too, must be so hard. It could be that the reality of your dad’s passing is just becoming real. You can feel pretty numb, and everything unreal for a while. I understand that you cannot visit any more than you are, but I wonder if this might help? When my dad died, I used to ring mum at about 10.00 in the evening, just to say goodnight. She had a phone by the bed, and would be settled in bed by then. It gave her something to look forward to, and helped to make her feel not so alone. It must have been for nearly a year that we did it.
It’s good your mum is getting out three times a week. I know that activity has to be balanced with time to rest for older people. Does your local Age UK offer a befriending service? It might be that someone could call in on a day she is at home, or maybe you could use a cleaner, who could call on a quiet day in her week, so that she has some company most days? Again, Age UK in our area offer a subsidised cleaning service.
Please keep posting, I am sure that other people will have suggestions too.

 

[Julid001]

Thank you for your reply Amethyst59. Luckily today I've got a meeting set up with myself and mum with a councillor from the Alzheimer's Society. I'm desperately hoping he can point me in the right direction. I've also just spoken with the memory nurse and she's trying to bring forward mum's 3rd appointment. She thought respite care might be an idea, but tbh, mum is absolutely adamant right now that she will not go into a care home. I need to find a way of calming the situation down before i can even think along those lines. She used to go to bed after the 10 o'clock news but over the past month she goes to bed quite early about between 7 and 8pm. I can't seem to do anything about that as I'm not there. If i ring later, shes usually in bed. So I usually ring her about 6.30pm every night. I think boredom and being on her own is a massive contribution to that. Trying to get any form of routine in place is a nightmare. I'm trying my best. I feel like I'm treading through treacle and not getting very far in settling her down. I did wonder whether to start getting carers in for about half an hour every night to see if this helps.

 

[Amethyst59]

Hopefully your meeting with the counsellor will give you some practical tips. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be patronising about the phone call...of course, you had thought of that yourself. Do keep posting, and let us know how you get on.

 

[Julid001]

Hopefully your meeting with the counsellor will give you some practical tips. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be patronising about the phone call...of course, you had thought of that yourself. Do keep posting, and let us know how you get on.

Hopefully your meeting with the counsellor will give you some practical tips. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be patronising about the phone call...of course, you had thought of that yourself. Do keep posting, and let us know how you get on.

 

[Julid001]

No need to apologise Ametheyst59, not patronising at all. I'm really grateful for your input. Mum has settled down a little bit now. She's just started to going to a day centre 3 times a week which is designed to help memory and it's just starting to kick in with a few positive effects on her. What we were finding was that when dad passed away, because of her memory issues, her old circle started to pull away I think they couldn't or didn't want to have to cope with her issues. They were all quite elderly themselves. So she started to sense this and became very upset and agitated with being on her own and none of her friends coming to see her. She felt abandoned by them. She didn't feel confident enough because of her memory to get a taxi or bus to go and see them. Plus she felt very embarrassed that she couldn't remember things. She's quite a social person who likes to chat and she just wasn't getting that, apart from family. So the only way round it was to look for an alternative social interaction. Hence the day centre. She's been a couple of times this week and it seems to be helping a bit. It's given her the interaction that she desperately needs.
The meeting with the support worker was very informative, I've now got dates for the memory cafes and singing for the brain. So we're going to give that a try too.
Hopefully this business with the evening issues might just settle, especially if she's too tired from the activities to bother about it if not, then I've got something else that I might try.
Such a huge learning curve.
Thank you again for your input. Any ideas are much greatly appreciated.