Mum with dementia and appointments
- Thread starter Chinnok
- Start date
Welcome to Talking Point @Chinnok it is a good place to come to for advice or a rant and has helped me a lot.
I go with dad to all of his appointments. I suppose it depends on how far advanced your mum is but I can't imagine that my dad would ever have turned up to any of his appointments over the last 3 years if I hadn't taken him. He wouldn't have a clue why or where he was going and also I felt the need to be there with him otherwise the doctor would never had got the true picture and I would have been completely in the dark about what was said. Dementia denial is very common and your mum may be likely to not turn up and even forget that she has been depending on how far the dementia has progressed. I have found all of dads doctors (other ailments) have been very good in keeping me informed all the way.
You will get other answers soon so don't rely on mine because others may have had different experiences to me.
I am afraid the situation with my Mum was very similar to @Duggies-girl. I also found that Mum would ‘ramble’ on particularly to a doctor about what was important to her at that moment in time rather than the issue we needed too. The Care Company that Mum had in would have ‘accompanied’ Mum to appointments so that might be an option. Mum was self funding though.
Im sorry but the only option seems for someone to be with her, whether it's at the surgery/hospital or a home visit. If no one in your family can do it you might want to look into paid carers accompanying her. Has she had a needs assessment with Social Services yet?
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As the others have said, unfortunately she needs a family member or friend with her. Even in the early days my mother had to be accompanied, otherwise she would forget to go, or have no clue why she was there or what was said. When her dementia was more advanced she had daily carers and they took her to medical appointments, but by that stage I carefully filleted her medical appointments and she only went to ones which were vital.
This was what caused a lot of issues with my dad. He was jumping in taxis, going to the Drs then going to the bank instead, or getting straight out again... that was after he drove himself and lost his car at the Drs where it was duly towed.
He had no organisation over appointments and my local family had no patience to take him. I was due to get carers in to go to appointments with him and take notes, but we ended up in crisis mode when the care company went to assess him and he hadn't eaten all day, having had his food cut off by the independent living centre (they had a canteen where he was taking all his meals having lost food preparation as a concept some time ago, or perhaps never fully picking it up to be honest).
I was getting calls from podiatry or Drs or whatever, your father has not shown up, we're striking him off services etc.
Now, thank goodness, the home send someone next door where the Drs is with him and they keep a calendar for him too.
You may have better luck sending someone and also get your Dr to put your mobile number as text reminders and send you the appointment letters. they are little good going to PWD.
To be honest all these letters used to stress dad out so it's load of all our minds.
He had no organisation over appointments and my local family had no patience to take him. I was due to get carers in to go to appointments with him and take notes, but we ended up in crisis mode when the care company went to assess him and he hadn't eaten all day, having had his food cut off by the independent living centre (they had a canteen where he was taking all his meals having lost food preparation as a concept some time ago, or perhaps never fully picking it up to be honest).
I was getting calls from podiatry or Drs or whatever, your father has not shown up, we're striking him off services etc.
Now, thank goodness, the home send someone next door where the Drs is with him and they keep a calendar for him too.
You may have better luck sending someone and also get your Dr to put your mobile number as text reminders and send you the appointment letters. they are little good going to PWD.
To be honest all these letters used to stress dad out so it's load of all our minds.
Yes, dad's GP and all of his other consultants have my mobile and contact me about dad and it works well. No point in contacting dad because he would immediately forget.
It is similar to having a small child.
It is similar to having a small child.
As others have said, you need the physical presence of someone there with your mum. With my mother-in-law, either I was there, or I arranged for carers to accompany her and they were under strict instructions to report what was said back to me. She was self funding though.
Until about eighteen months ago mum could remember about appointments.She had a habit of bothering her doctor about various things and then saying she didn’t think they knew what they were talking about. When I started to accompany her it became obvious she wasn’t really taking in anything that was said even though she gave the appearance that she did,
If you can’t get there is there any chance of the doctor speaking to you and your mum via speaker phone. The psychiatrist who visited mum at home did that and it was very useful.
If you can’t get there is there any chance of the doctor speaking to you and your mum via speaker phone. The psychiatrist who visited mum at home did that and it was very useful.
Welcome to DTP, Chinnok. Sorry, I am not aware of any support services like that being available, but when I take my partner to appointments she relies on me to know why we are there, so I see your predicament. There are Dementia Navigators here, but I don't know whether there is a service like that everywhere. A list of local support services at https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/find-support-near-you may be of use and if you have a good local carers support centre they may be able to point you to something or someone. They are at http://carers.org.
Good luck.
Good luck.
