My mother is getting so fed up with having personal care that she is starting to pinch slap and now bite the carers. They are patient and kind at all times.
Self funding starts in three weeks when we will have the same two people each day which I am hoping will help her.
I explain that the carers have to wash and change her but she just wants to be left alone and is now saying that she doesnt want to go when on the commode. I explain that it is better to try whilst she has the commode, otherwise it will be a case of soiling her pad.
I wont go. You cant make me.
Yet once carers have gone she is sudde ly desperate for the loo calling help help and saying what can I do. She is also back to being perfectly rational again saying how sorry she is for pinching etc …
You’re a very loyal daughter. More loyal than personally I think she deserves. But then, sigh, how much of her appalling behaviour is the dementia, and how much is ‘her responsibility’. SO hard to call.
Bowlinbun. Old age, arthritis in knees, hence immobile and I suspect dementia …
Jenny I am loyal. I had a talk about trying to come to terms with personal care and not fighting the carers. She said thank you for talki g to me. I sympathised with her feeling angry and out of control and for being cross cos they wouldnt stoo when she asked them to.
I also mentioned that the carers were making her clean and that they couldnt just stop and leave her in her own sh** could they?
No darling. Sorry I am so horrible. Not horrible mother, frightened and ashamed and disgusted. The only thing you can change is your attitude to personal care. Try to acceot it with good grace. You are a kind decent person try to be that person even when stressed. We can only try.
She said I was right and that she would try.
I hope she is a le to acept it and is less afraid when bei g hoisted and turned. She was so lovely with the next set of carers, thank you and you are so kind, etc.
I love my Mother so much and enjoy caring for her a lot of the time. Lu kily!
Jaqueline
Dad also went hrough a phase like this, I feel sure from your posts there is likely to be dementia in the picture. It is so frustrating that all personal care is refused from professionals and as soon as they close the door on their way out she requires personal care immediately. Just hang in there and keep your sanity. . Make everything as easy as possible for yourself. I didn’t discover the joy and delight of commode liners for many months.
Commode liners. Right. Another exciting purchase for the list!!!
She was wonderful again tonight despite feeling afraid she managed to be generally polite and hardly paniced at all. Phew. The carers are utterly amazing.
Sorry to hear this. My Dad is the same. Thankfully he as lovely carers in a nursing home. He tries to hit and bite relative too. I’m ashamed to say I don’t visit very often because of this as I find it really traumatic. He has a neurological condition which means he no longer has mental capacity.
You are a lovely daughter who is doing your best for your Mum. My Mum also has carers in, as she has Alzheimer’s and it has been a similar case of keeping reassuring and explaining why carers have to come in to her. She is not violent, but she was VERY bitter and angry about it for many months to begin with. Thankfully she is now getting to know them and actually likes some of them. So it can get better. Like you I understand how humiliating it must be for them. But equally you have to keep telling yourself you are doing the right thing. No one can care 24/7. Hard to come to terms with it all tho, isn’t it?
Be kind to yourself and keep reassuring her. It is all you can do.
xx
Hello
My husband gets aggressive when the carers have to see to his personal needs in the nursing home. Not always, but often. The language is awful! My lovely husband would never have sworn at ladies, or be aggressive when someone was trying to help him.( He may have cussed t the pub with mates lol) The staff say he is a pussy cat at other times, unless he feels threatened, Someone walking behind him etc. It’s very hard. I write an imaginary D on my hand to remind me it’s the blasted dementia and not him.