Mum has been finally diagnosed

Specific disabilities and conditions
1

Hi,

We finally bit the bullet and had Mum diagnosed. It turned out she has mixed dementia - Alzheimer’s and Vascular. What I am struggling to cope with is the speed at which she is deteriorating. She is 92 and we were told that at her age, Alzheimer’s at least, tended to develop more slowly. I think the fact that she was in hospital before Christmas hasn’t helped, she has gone downhill so quickly since she came home.
She is now doubly incontinent and doesn’t seem at all aware of it. She just wants to sleep most of the day. I have a job getting her up in the morning and I’m talking late morning at that. I tried to get her in the shower this morning and she said she didn’t know what to do, but didn’t want me to help and actually seemed scared of it, so I just washed her as best I could.

I’ve actually given in and we have a carer starting on Monday morning, who will get Mum up and give her breakfast etc as I work in the mornings.

I just feel so sad that Mum should have to go through this and me too.

I just wanted to tell someone who understands.

1 Like
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Karen, I’m really sorry to hear about mum’s huge decline.

Even more sorry to say that this is the time for you to look for long term residential care, as the good homes all have waiting lists. There may be some local homes who offer day care too, it varies so much from area to area. You need to look for EMI homes, Elderly Mentally Infirm, that can deal with anything medical that occurs, until the end.

Sorry to depress you even more, but it’s better to know what you might need and plan, than end up with mum miles away from home because when a crisis happens, there are no local beds available. For this reason, my much loved mum in law ended up 20 miles from home, when there was a good home 2 miles away.