Sectioning is not the end, they will sort out her medication and hopefully put things in place for your mother to return to care home. If any consolation my mum used to climb out of my windows late at night, nothing to do with wanting to get to someone or trying to get away from me, it was just something she did. To this day I am amazed that she actually got out, all windows on ground floor, but I'm convinced if we had a 1st floor she would try and not be aware that she was one floor up from ground level.
Should I have stopped my Mum being with her abusive partner?
- Thread starter Lisethepiece
- Start date
Thanks for your response Lyn - did you OH go back to the CH after he was sectioned? If they can stabilise Mum I would love to think she could return to this home aferwards. I do agree with your comments about the man involved getting muddled up with Dad. I am so angry that he stopped her alzheimers meds 6 months ago whilst telling us all she was still taking them - I understand that stopping them so suddenly can cause the escalation in behaviour problems that we are now seeing. I will never forgive him for it.
Lise. x
Thanks for you reply - it is a specialist dementia ward at the CH that Mum is in. However the psychiatric nurse I spoke to told me she had never seen such extreme behaviour as Mum is desplaying in all her time there.
Hi Lise, I just want to echo what LynT and havemercy have said - please do give serious consideration to having her sectioned so that her care can be appropriate to her needs which, however lovely the care home is doesn't sound truly possible at the moment.
As the others have said her medication can be adjusted until she is as stable as she can be, the specialist care available really does seem to be what she needs, please don't deny her it just from a fear of 'sectioning' - As LynT has said people are sectioned and then come back to where they were or on to a more appropriate setting, it isn't a life sentence, it is a possible way of helping your poor Mum.
I don't want to presume but is avoiding sectioning more to do with how you feel about it? I'm afraid illnesses like dementia can take us to horrible decisions but avoiding them really doesn't work. Your Mum is far from happy or content right now with her hands all hurt and trying to commit suicide, really, what have you got to lose by trying it for her?
As the others have said her medication can be adjusted until she is as stable as she can be, the specialist care available really does seem to be what she needs, please don't deny her it just from a fear of 'sectioning' - As LynT has said people are sectioned and then come back to where they were or on to a more appropriate setting, it isn't a life sentence, it is a possible way of helping your poor Mum.
I don't want to presume but is avoiding sectioning more to do with how you feel about it? I'm afraid illnesses like dementia can take us to horrible decisions but avoiding them really doesn't work. Your Mum is far from happy or content right now with her hands all hurt and trying to commit suicide, really, what have you got to lose by trying it for her?
Yes Pete did go back to his CH-they wanted him back because they felt so sorry for him and me. They were very kind. Pete was sectioned the previous four times from our home and he always came back to me. A few men on the assessment ward were there for the duration I'm afraid-but I'm not sure if that was due to dementia or other MH problems. It costs a lot for the NHS to provide specialist help and they do their best to move people on, and the beds are few and far between.
Good luck Lise
Lyn T XX
I would have been happy for Mum to be sectioned when she made her suicide attempt from home, because I had seen so many comments on here telling me that is OK and it will help get her stabilised. However, my brother and his daughter were screaming at me down the phone that Mum must not be sectioned or it would mean no home would take her afterwards. The police and paramedics assured me that wasnt the case, but in the end my brothers preferred to stay there with Mum to safeguard her. I wonder whether things would have been better today if I had pushed for sectioning a week ago?
Hi Lise. My mum was in a very agressive and volatile state a few years back. She was threatening self-harm and being very verbally agressive. Sectioning was the best thing to ever happen her. She was kept in hospital for about 1 month. They took her off all her meds and then began to build it all up again in the correct quantities. Mum came out much more calmer and all the theats had gone. She now lives in a regular EMI unit. This unit has many residents who were once sectioned so your brothers' fears are unfounded.
Now Lise-stop the 'If I had's.....'
You have more information now but it's still a choice you have to make-unless it's taken out of your hands by the medics. You have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself for. Reassure your brothers that your Mum would be safeguarded on a MH ward; for cases of unpredictable behaviour there is 1 to 1 support to protect all of the patients.Love,
Lyn T
Yes, I think that's pretty much where I was going with what I was saying. Well done you for being the one who's able to grasp the nettle and face the facts that it may genuinely be the best thing for Mum at this moment in time - not least because it will be a restricted environment (in my experience) so no chance of contact of any sort with the problem man friend.
Given how things are for her at the moment I do think any chance that she can be helped should be taken - from the info on here you can at least reassure your brother and niece that it is not the case that no home will take Mum afterwards - in fact I would have said the opposite actually as if her condition doesn't improve she will be much harder to place than if she is calmer and more settled.
Last thought, something else for your brother to consider - wouldn't it be better, if sectioning does happen, that it happens in a planned and calm way rather than as a result of another emergency?
Best wishes to you and your Mum.
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Mum better but begging to go home
Thank you to all for your kind words.
I am happy to report that Mum has had her medication adjusted by the CPN in our area and is calmer and had a good night's sleep. So she is still in the CH and has not been sectioned. However, when my brother spoke to her last night she is still begging to go home, she does not understand why this has happened and she has to be somewhere "with a load of crazy people". My Mum has never accepted that she has dementia, she always just says she has a 'funny head'. My brother told her that she had to be there because she attempted suicide and keeps threatening it. He said it was the health professionals decision to put her there not ours. Which is sort of true. He told her that she needs to be on her best behaviour or they will keep her there longer. I am planning to go to see her tomorrow with my husband (who she loves), but I just dont know what to say to her.
Has anyone had a similar experience with their parent/partner begging them to go home and do they eventually accept where they are? The CH mentioned that they can't force someone to stay against their wishes, so I'm still worried that they may not want to keep her there.
Thank you to all for your kind words.
I am happy to report that Mum has had her medication adjusted by the CPN in our area and is calmer and had a good night's sleep. So she is still in the CH and has not been sectioned. However, when my brother spoke to her last night she is still begging to go home, she does not understand why this has happened and she has to be somewhere "with a load of crazy people". My Mum has never accepted that she has dementia, she always just says she has a 'funny head'. My brother told her that she had to be there because she attempted suicide and keeps threatening it. He said it was the health professionals decision to put her there not ours. Which is sort of true. He told her that she needs to be on her best behaviour or they will keep her there longer. I am planning to go to see her tomorrow with my husband (who she loves), but I just dont know what to say to her.
Has anyone had a similar experience with their parent/partner begging them to go home and do they eventually accept where they are? The CH mentioned that they can't force someone to stay against their wishes, so I'm still worried that they may not want to keep her there.
Awww, it's so good to hear that she is much calmer now. It is, sadly, a common thread that people with dementia are unable to absorb the fact that they are not able to live by themselves any longer. My mum has been in the CH since January but constantly demands to know when she will be allowed home, refutes any comments that the doctor has said she can't live alone, says she'll be glad to get home so she can do her own washing ,shopping, cooking , cleaning, none of which she has done for the past two and a half years! This lack of insight is a cruel cross to bear
Hugs
Hugs
Hi Lise-I'm glad there has been some improvement. Actually the CH will be able to stop her leaving if there is a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard applied to her. This may take another call to the CPN -it needs an assessment but a SW/MH Professional can apply for one.
Love,
Lyn T XX
Love,
Lyn T XX
Please dont be upset by the idea of a DOLs. Mum has one as she is in a dementia unit with a lock on the front door. It is very common. People wanting to "go home" or "escape" is all part and parcel of daily life there.
I think it is very important to safeguard your mum from that man, so please dont allow her to be sent home simply because she doesnt have a DOLs.
I think it is very important to safeguard your mum from that man, so please dont allow her to be sent home simply because she doesnt have a DOLs.
Awww, it's so good to hear that she is much calmer now. It is, sadly, a common thread that people with dementia are unable to absorb the fact that they are not able to live by themselves any longer. My mum has been in the CH since January but constantly demands to know when she will be allowed home, refutes any comments that the doctor has said she can't live alone, says she'll be glad to get home so she can do her own washing ,shopping, cooking , cleaning, none of which she has done for the past two and a half years! This lack of insight is a cruel cross to bear
Hugs
That sounds just like my Mum! She keeps saying the doctor said there was nothing wrong with her and she can go home. She says she cannot believe I have put her in this home and is so angry with me. She was so horrible today when I went to see her with my 18 and 20 year old daughters that they begged me not to visit her again as she is so nasty to me and they hated seeing it. My daughters are so supportive, but I do hate this situation so much. Last week I couldn't work as the stress led to me grinding my teeth and cracking one in half, then my back gave out. I was hobbling around in agony. Meanwhile my Mum continues to deman she is taken home and her "lover" returned to her (this her abusive partner who stopped her medication without telling everyone which may well have sped up her decline). There is no justice, in her mind he is the love of her life and I am this evil daughter she is saddled with, yet I do everything and he completely neglected her when he wasn't abusing her.
Do you think it is ok to step away from visiting her for a while for my own sanity? She is safe in the home, and it is lovely one, ten times nicer than the one she put her own mother in when she had the same condition.
Of course it is! It's the only sensible thing to do. How could it benefit anyone (your Mum included) if you pushed yourself so hard you collapsed completely? And how would your loving daughters feel if they'd "failed" to persuade you to take better care of yourself?
Please look after yourself.
Absolutely it is Lise, you have ensured that she is safe and well cared for - now do the same for yourself..... it is very, very difficult to get the balance right and I doubt many of us get it truly right, and we usually err in the side that leaves us needing rather than our LO. Is the home close to you? Could you pop in just to 'see' your Mum , I mean literally just see her but not have any contact just so that you don't feel badly about not actually visiting - if that would work for you, if not ignore that! And please, please don't apply logic and 'straight thinking' to the way your Mum reacts to you and the way she talks about this man, your Mum isn't thinking straight, her poor mind is all mixed up, please don't take it at face value, please.
