What do we do next ?

[Pippy]

My Mother,82 has recently been diagnosed as having Vascular Dementia, she is widowed & lives on her own, we are still waiting for results from the memory clinic to find out whether she also has Alzeihmers.
The symptoms first started 5years ago , poor memory, repeating herself,confusion. these were always exagerated by taking her out of her ' comfort zone', she lives in Cardiff, my partner & I in Swindon, so if she visited for a weekend, which she did use to do quite regularly, these episodes were always worse.
As time progressed she slowly got worse, my sister & I put a lot of this down to just being elderly at first My sister who lives localy was by now calling in daily and in September last year I spent a week with her while my sister went on holiday, the first time that I had managed to spend that amount of time with her in nearly a year. The deterioation was quite shocking, she had convinced herself that she had run out of money , that she owed the banks thousands & was in a state of hysteria & paranoia. I managed to calm her & on my sisters return we had an enduring power of attorney drawn up & arranged with the banks to have all correspondence sent to us, as even the most mundane thing as a bank statement would be the trigger to an 'episode'.
We managed to get her to go to her GP, the Dr & all of the surgery have been fantastic , to talk about her 'memory problem' which she would now admit to having, & got a referral to the memory clinic.
We got an appointment in February & Mum went with my sister, I don't know how she scored, we have another appointment in May & we hope to get more info then, unfortunatley this visit seems to have made things worse,she is now convinced that 'That Man' is trying to put her in a home , that my sister is in on the conspiracy & that she has run out of money & is being hounded by the banks again.
The Phsycologist has prescibed medication(I am not sure what it is , Mum just refers to it as her memory pills)
My poor sister has borne the brunt of this, phone calls late at night, or at work, and finds her in various states of distress when she visits.
I support as often as I can now visiting & staying as regularly as possible to give my sister a break.
We feel that we now need help & support from outside, Mum regularly burns pots & pans & we have trouble ensuring that she takes her medication even with a dosset box, she now has next to no short term memory & borders on a state of permanent paranoia.However if we try to suggest any form of help Mum digs her heels in & insists nothing is wrong.
We want her to retain her independance for as long as possible but have real concerns about her safety. We don't know how to go about putting care into place with out upsetting her even more,be very grateful for any suggestions.
Apologies for the length of this!

 

[Skye]

Dear Pippy

Welcome to TP.

It's always a problem when someone who has always been independent needs more care, or at least supervision.

The first thing for you to do is get your mum's GP to refer you to social services. You may have to keep ringing SS, cases they consider low priority tend to be pushed to the bottom of the pile. Just keep nagging, and stress the safety aspect.

Your mum may be assessed as needing someone to come in at different times to help with meals, pill, etc. She may also be assessed as needing day care. This would be a good solution for her -- she would be going out to her 'club' rather than having someone in to look after her. She would be picked up and dropped off. If you can, insist on an Alzheimer's day centre -- they are much more geared up to providing stimulation.

I'm glad she has been prescribed some medication -- you may have to demand a reassessment if they do not have an effect.

The late night phone calls are hard to bear, and I don't think there is a solution, short of sedation, which may make the confusion worse.

Try SS first. Let us know how you get on.

 

[Margarita]

Yes it is a nightmare trying to get home care , when they don’t want it but really its better you organize all that , like Skye said with Social services , because God forbid that something did happen to your mother , first thing doctor say as I have read on TP is why did you not contact Social services.

Just phone to tell them what is happening with your mother and what help can they offer, get a care plan assessment, it may sound horrible, but being realistic you may have to tell your mother that yes she will end up in care home if she does not except home care, and yes she going to be angry at you only because she now can not see the logic in it all that part go.

I had it all with my mother not wanting to expect help, so I do understand


yes your find that , when someone with dementia/AZ move to another surrounding, like when your mother visit you, they do get more confused so they systems of dementia get much worse , but they do settle down after a few day . if you understand this it may make it less stress full for you and your family , when your mother come to visit