Mom is having memory loss

[kacaju]

A good geriatric specialist will pay a lot of attention to the meds.

I am in my mid 60s. I had some issues that were directly attributed to the meds I was taking. One was for blood pressure and had been around for decades. The other I had been taking for over 15 years.

Now that I am off of both of them I do not have any problems. I must admit that it was scary as hell.

Good to know...thanks! I do think she needs a complete medication overhaul.
She is not taking all her medicine all the time. She has 2 medicines she is supposed to take 3 times a day and she never does.

 

[MedicGoofy]

Good to hear that things are starting to move in the right direction with specialists.

Sounds like your mom is doing the going back in time. If you were to have conversations with her, is it easier for her to remember things from many many years ago? My grandpa used to sit and talk nonstop about things that he would remember from my days as a toddler. Could give me details from things 20 years ago. Ask him what he had for breakfast....he wouldn't even know if he had breakfast. Short memory was gone....but the long memory was so strong.

I hope as time goes on you continue to get answers and stay on path with the right specialists. Continue to push for the answers you need. You are your mom's BEST advocate. You know her best.

Wishing you the best and thinking of you and your family.

Jenn

 

[kacaju]

Good to hear that things are starting to move in the right direction with specialists.

Sounds like your mom is doing the going back in time. If you were to have conversations with her, is it easier for her to remember things from many many years ago? My grandpa used to sit and talk nonstop about things that he would remember from my days as a toddler. Could give me details from things 20 years ago. Ask him what he had for breakfast....he wouldn't even know if he had breakfast. Short memory was gone....but the long memory was so strong.

I hope as time goes on you continue to get answers and stay on path with the right specialists. Continue to push for the answers you need. You are your mom's BEST advocate. You know her best.

Wishing you the best and thinking of you and your family.

Jenn

Thank you so much...it truly means a lot to me right now. I want to have a family meeting tonight to start discussing stuff (with my 3 brothers...not Mom) and 1 brother, the one who lives with her, is flipping out telling me she just needs her medication adjusted and she will be fine...there is no reason to discuss anything else at this point..I disagree....I think we need to start talking about the what if's.

 

[5stljayhawks]

If you(family) can goto a alz general intro meeting where they discuss the disease and the stages it will help all of you (brothers/sisters) This forum will help you let you know where you are at and more important where you/mom are headed. I lost my father 4/11 to alz. my mother is appears to be not to far behind.

One can hope for mild dementia, but reality is cruel. Make sure you have the proper paper work - advance directives for medical and financial. Keep a close eye on the financial stuff...

The rollercoaster ride for the family can be long...

live, hope, smile...

 

[kacaju]

HUGE update...
Well, I went back to this post and saw I started it almost 1 year ago. Things over the year have gotten worse (yes..no surprise)

One thing I did not mention is my mother lives with my adult alocholic brother who thinks he is helping Mom (he lives there rent free so he is more afraid of losing the gravy train, not helping her)

Over the year, I have taken mom to dr's...once they start talking about Assisted Living places..she doesnt like them and refuses to listen to them. We have tried a home health aide which she fought us on..she said she is not that bad that she needs help.

I have hired an elder care manager to help me because I just do not know what to do or where to turn. I have 3 brothers. the alcholic is usless and he causes mom a lot of stress. Mom refuses to kick him out of the house and once when she did...he came back and told another brother he will not leave.

#2 brother and his wife are wonderful and try to help..but we are not on the same page as far as what to do with mom. They want to try home health care..and I think she is beyond that so it is hard to talk with them. My uncle..moms brother is on the same page as them.
#3 brother is on the same page as me in that mom really needs Assisted Living.

As of last week..mom was still driving..but much less, and any discussion of not driving is met with an arguement.

Mom's a mess with her medicine..she has depression and anxiety which is not being helped by her meds and she started to try to self medicate by changing her doses and times and well...you can imagine how well that worked...

So this past week she completely flipped out..she was very upset I did not invite the alcoholic to my daughters familt graduation party. I am sure he is feeding into it and having pity parties with mom at home about how horrible I am. And how family should not do this to each other....Yes, I am a horrible person for being fed up with his crap and finally put my foot down and refused to ignore his behavior.

So it seems my mom has been telling him she needed to go to a mental health hospital (she was there for post partum 40+ years ago)

I spoke with the care mananger on Monday and explained Mom's state of mind...she was so full of anxiety all weekend due to a number of things that happened...and the alcoholic actually stayed home all weekend..which made things worse (he normally is never home on the weekends and that is her relaxing time)

so the care manager said to take mom to the hospital for a psyc eval and get her admitted to the mental health hospital. Mom was actually excited about going. I HAD NO IDEA SHE HAD BEEN ASKING TO GO.

So after spending Monday 6pm to Tuesday 8:30am with mom in the hospital..I followed the ambulance to the mental health hospital and left mom there. I have not heard from the hospital as to how she is doing yet..I am waiting for them to call me. I can go visit her tomorrow.

So we will see what happens next.

 

[taylor3297]

HUGE update...
Well, I went back to this post and saw I started it almost 1 year ago. Things over the year have gotten worse (yes..no surprise)

One thing I did not mention is my mother lives with my adult alocholic brother who thinks he is helping Mom (he lives there rent free so he is more afraid of losing the gravy train, not helping her)

Over the year, I have taken mom to dr's...once they start talking about Assisted Living places..she doesnt like them and refuses to listen to them. We have tried a home health aide which she fought us on..she said she is not that bad that she needs help.

I have hired an elder care manager to help me because I just do not know what to do or where to turn. I have 3 brothers. the alcholic is usless and he causes mom a lot of stress. Mom refuses to kick him out of the house and once when she did...he came back and told another brother he will not leave.

#2 brother and his wife are wonderful and try to help..but we are not on the same page as far as what to do with mom. They want to try home health care..and I think she is beyond that so it is hard to talk with them. My uncle..moms brother is on the same page as them.
#3 brother is on the same page as me in that mom really needs Assisted Living.

As of last week..mom was still driving..but much less, and any discussion of not driving is met with an arguement.

Mom's a mess with her medicine..she has depression and anxiety which is not being helped by her meds and she started to try to self medicate by changing her doses and times and well...you can imagine how well that worked...

So this past week she completely flipped out..she was very upset I did not invite the alcoholic to my daughters familt graduation party. I am sure he is feeding into it and having pity parties with mom at home about how horrible I am. And how family should not do this to each other....Yes, I am a horrible person for being fed up with his crap and finally put my foot down and refused to ignore his behavior.

So it seems my mom has been telling him she needed to go to a mental health hospital (she was there for post partum 40+ years ago)

I spoke with the care mananger on Monday and explained Mom's state of mind...she was so full of anxiety all weekend due to a number of things that happened...and the alcoholic actually stayed home all weekend..which made things worse (he normally is never home on the weekends and that is her relaxing time)

so the care manager said to take mom to the hospital for a psyc eval and get her admitted to the mental health hospital. Mom was actually excited about going. I HAD NO IDEA SHE HAD BEEN ASKING TO GO.

So after spending Monday 6pm to Tuesday 8:30am with mom in the hospital..I followed the ambulance to the mental health hospital and left mom there. I have not heard from the hospital as to how she is doing yet..I am waiting for them to call me. I can go visit her tomorrow.

So we will see what happens next.

I just went through all of this with my mother. In the end I had to go file the POA with the courthouse so I could take care of everything.

Now I am shocked that she is still driving. Check the laws in your state. Here in NC if she has an accident and it can be proven that she may have memory loss, and you knew she may have memory loss, you can be held accountable. I am also shocked the doctors haven't asked for her license.

We took my Mom to a geriatric neurologist. Had all the tests done and she has Frontal Lobe Dementia.

So my Mom is now in assisted living. I had to sell her townhome, car, furniture, basically everything she owned.

We had noticed her memory loss, begged her to get checked. Well come to find out later she went to her primary care doctor and he told she had no problems! Boy was he wrong.

My Mom was able to "cover" her memory loss for awhile. It took her becoming really sick for her to totally show us her memory loss.

If you have any questions let me know. I am my Mother's Durable POA and medical POA.

Also, make sure you are covered legally in case she harms someone while driving. Some umbrella policies may cover this.

 

[Deesknee]

sounds vagely familiar. I have had some experience with some of the issues you are now addressing.
- my mom eventually just stopped driving, but in doing so she couldn't go out as much, because physically she wasn't always "up to it" when we were able to bring her out. So she isolated, which worsened her depression. I commend you and your Mom for trying to get her depression diagnosed so hopefully she can move on in a forward motion.
- the alcoholic in my life ... how do I say this... had a solution for everything, as long as HE was not the one who had to implement it. He had "problems" so he had not time/patience.for some reason he thought the rest of us didn't have any of our own problems. I do not want to offend you in any way. I only mention it because it helped me not waste moments of my(and my loved ones) precious life obsessing about the alcoholics "opinions", there is a program called ALANON. you may want to google it to find out more info on it.
-My mom has passed away. My brother dealt with her passing in his own way. Thanks to ALANON I don't have to inquire how. He showed up to "say goodbye" the day before she passed. He showed up to make her final arrangements and was at the wake/funeral. If after you look into what ALANON is IF you decide it may be helpful, perhaps when you speak to the MH facility you could mention ALANON. Many of them are alcohol treatment centers as well, and may have ALANON information to help your mom if they find it would be helpful to her.
-whatever happens just hold true that you loved your Mom and you wanted what you sincerely thought was best for her. I would call that true love. Bless you.

 

[kacaju]

sounds vagely familiar. I have had some experience with some of the issues you are now addressing.
- my mom eventually just stopped driving, but in doing so she couldn't go out as much, because physically she wasn't always "up to it" when we were able to bring her out. So she isolated, which worsened her depression. I commend you and your Mom for trying to get her depression diagnosed so hopefully she can move on in a forward motion.
- the alcoholic in my life ... how do I say this... had a solution for everything, as long as HE was not the one who had to implement it. He had "problems" so he had not time/patience.for some reason he thought the rest of us didn't have any of our own problems. I do not want to offend you in any way. I only mention it because it helped me not waste moments of my(and my loved ones) precious life obsessing about the alcoholics "opinions", there is a program called ALANON. you may want to google it to find out more info on it.
-My mom has passed away. My brother dealt with her passing in his own way. Thanks to ALANON I don't have to inquire how. He showed up to "say goodbye" the day before she passed. He showed up to make her final arrangements and was at the wake/funeral. If after you look into what ALANON is IF you decide it may be helpful, perhaps when you speak to the MH facility you could mention ALANON. Many of them are alcohol treatment centers as well, and may have ALANON information to help your mom if they find it would be helpful to her.
-whatever happens just hold true that you loved your Mom and you wanted what you sincerely thought was best for her. I would call that true love. Bless you.

Thank you, yes I have heard about ALANON and have looked up meetings. Truthfully, I am so busy with my own family..I have not given it a priority..the meetings locally are on a night we are busy with other things and one of the other meetings is on the only night have nothing to do...and I hate giving up that one night I get to stay home.

I saw Mom last night and she is a completely different person. Calm, relaxed talking to everyone...this is how she should be. In the mean time my brother is in panic mode because he is afraid mom won't be coming home and he is calling everyone in the family to carry on about how HE is going to help Mom Him and Mom are going to work on this together so they can stay together. I swear...if you heard him talk you would think he was talking about hs wife...not mother...about how much he carries on about them working it out together, so they can stay together.He is desperate and it is really sad.

 

[kacaju]

So Mom is still doing well. Not sure when she will come out...I am guessing not until after the 4th. We are starting to have huge problems with my brother. He is beginning to get nervous that Mom has been there so long and is starting to freak out.

He called me today and started yelling at me, called another brother. He says it is ALL my fault Mom is in the Mental Hospital and that I put her there (even though mom did tell him she signed herself in). He is in panic mode and I can only hope maybe THIS will bring him the help he needs.

He called my cell and left a message to me saying to *JUST STAY OUT OF IT* repeating himself a few times...then he says it shows I have *NO LOVE FOR MOM*. Again..repeating himself. I am saving the message and am going to let the Dr. at the MH listen to it so they can hear it in his voice how angry he gets.

I also called the hospital in tears..because he was threating to go over there and take Mom home..I just wanted to give them the heads up if he showed up there.

I know they would not release her. They assured me she is safe and she is OK.

WHEW..I cant begin to tell you how happy Mom looks in the hospital...she is making friends and is talking to people. I just know if I was able to get her into an Assit. living place she would be like this all the time...instead he is pushing her to go back home to him and he is going to take care of mom. He is blaming me...I am the one who is stressing Mom..he called the brother who has POA and said my uncle (mom's brother) said he is doing a horrible job with Mom's money and he wants to take it back...not true..he is just running so scared right now.

 

[Deesknee]

prayers continue for you & yours. At least your mom is safe & sounds happy.

I get it about not enough days in the week. I call it a balancing act. I keep telling DH I wish that my balancing act was the ONLY reason I felt like I live in the circus.

Hang in there.

 

[kacaju]

UPDATE...not good...So Mom came out of the hospital on July 6th. Went back on
July 10th and is still there. She has now become violent because after them sending her home the first time..(even though I TOLD them it was not a good idea) her going back in has made them relize home is not safe and she needs to go someplace. Well..Mom is not liking that idea AT ALL and has completely flipped out over the idea of going to an assisted living place. She started throwing things...which now she is labeled as violent, so the assisted living place is out...the mental hospital is working on finding a nursing home that is willing to take a behavioral problem person. It is out of my hands...she will be going to a place that is willing to take her. If..at some point she calms down...there is a possiblity of moving her to where we wanted her....just not sure how this will all play out.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Blessings to you. I know you have been through so much during this time with your mom. Hoping she can get placed and find the right fit so that she can get the care she needs.

 

[kacaju]

Blessings to you. I know you have been through so much during this time with your mom. Hoping she can get placed and find the right fit so that she can get the care she needs.

thank you..it really means a lot to me