Sidenote - This is all secondhand information as I wasn't around when this happened so bear that in mind.
A few weeks ago my gran had two heart attacks and had to spend about a week and a half in hospital. She's 84 and coming into the later stages of dementia, it seems. I'm a student so I live away from home mostly, and this happened a couple days after I visited.
Apparently, she was okay for the first two days in hospital, but then due to what we later found out was a urinary infection, had a huge incident of delusions, hallucinations and extreme aggressive behaviour. My mum was called into hospital at about 10pm after one of the nurses had told her that my gran had cut herself and was smearing blood on the other patients, was shouting and trying to attack anyone who came near her so could not be sedated. Once she got there apparently my gran called my mum 'useless', said she was unfaithful to my dad, claimed she wasn't even her daughter and told her to get out. My mum (obviously) couldn't deal with this and had to take a break with one of the nurses as my dad tried to reason with my gran. In this time, my gran was telling my dad a huge and to be honest incredibly imaginative story about the nurses trying to kill her, and that there were clues everywhere. From how my parents described it, she basically performed an evil villain-esque monologue complete with dark humour and really nasty remarks about my mum, who she's had a very good relationship with all her life.
Since the hospital her physical and mental health has drastically deteriorated. She now sleeps constantly and is completely physically incapable, and doesn't seem to think she lives here anymore. I'm visiting again at the moment and every day I'm expecting her to not know who I am anymore. The whole thing at the hospital was so, so out of character, I still can't believe it, and it's really hard to deal with since she's basically been a second mum to me and lived with us all my life. I'd read about personality changes and physical incompetence, but never about full scale delusions like in the hospital.
Has anyone else experienced things like this? I don't know how we'll be able to handle Christmas day, I don't even know if she'll be around by then. It makes me not want to be at home which is awful because I know my parents need all the support they can get but I'm just struggling to deal with it.
A few weeks ago my gran had two heart attacks and had to spend about a week and a half in hospital. She's 84 and coming into the later stages of dementia, it seems. I'm a student so I live away from home mostly, and this happened a couple days after I visited.
Apparently, she was okay for the first two days in hospital, but then due to what we later found out was a urinary infection, had a huge incident of delusions, hallucinations and extreme aggressive behaviour. My mum was called into hospital at about 10pm after one of the nurses had told her that my gran had cut herself and was smearing blood on the other patients, was shouting and trying to attack anyone who came near her so could not be sedated. Once she got there apparently my gran called my mum 'useless', said she was unfaithful to my dad, claimed she wasn't even her daughter and told her to get out. My mum (obviously) couldn't deal with this and had to take a break with one of the nurses as my dad tried to reason with my gran. In this time, my gran was telling my dad a huge and to be honest incredibly imaginative story about the nurses trying to kill her, and that there were clues everywhere. From how my parents described it, she basically performed an evil villain-esque monologue complete with dark humour and really nasty remarks about my mum, who she's had a very good relationship with all her life.
Since the hospital her physical and mental health has drastically deteriorated. She now sleeps constantly and is completely physically incapable, and doesn't seem to think she lives here anymore. I'm visiting again at the moment and every day I'm expecting her to not know who I am anymore. The whole thing at the hospital was so, so out of character, I still can't believe it, and it's really hard to deal with since she's basically been a second mum to me and lived with us all my life. I'd read about personality changes and physical incompetence, but never about full scale delusions like in the hospital.
Has anyone else experienced things like this? I don't know how we'll be able to handle Christmas day, I don't even know if she'll be around by then. It makes me not want to be at home which is awful because I know my parents need all the support they can get but I'm just struggling to deal with it.
