Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

You're right, Walter. Any change can be really disturbing in those circumstances.

I remember being asked by the Nursing Facility if I would mind Bob being moved to another room to accommodate a new admission & I said YES I WOULD, very firmly. He'd been in and out of hospitals and the nursing home & now that he was in the last place he would ever be I saw no good at all in confusing him further.

And if the staff thought I was being a pig, too bad.

Well, in my/aunt's case, the stuff of the home agrees with me.
And I know that they can handle it as well as in a psychiatric hospital (perhaps a bit different).

Mother has a very bad day today, mood-wise. Even the nurses warned me before I entered her room.

And since I didn't want to 'discuss' why grandma (dead since 38 years) send my aunt (in the home now) away for holidays/vacancies but I ordered her to stay in hospital ... I left, just getting the dirty laundry, after a minute or so.


I know that there will be other days again.
And that she'll forget what has been today (Sundays usually were bad days for her in hospital).
But she really suffers. And that surely isn't good.

However, I accept that I can't change the situation nor anyone else.
[I would be crazy after two days in a hospital. She's there since nearly seven weeks by now ... .]

No changes today, besides that mother is talking even more 'confused'.

Mother was sleeping this afternoon (so I'll go there again shortly).
I spoke to the ward's doctors: when the accident surgeon's side it's all more or going fine, she could leave their ward next week (the wound doesn't heal fast).

However, her bood results are good at all, the internists have already looked at her and think that's it's heart related.
Both head of departments will talk about it tomorrow - and I'll decide afterwards what will be done.
(She wants to 'go home' - but that's exactly what she wants to do in the senior's home as well ....)

She's been through a lot. Sleep is good.

Woke only up when I came this evening (and got the "evening wash" by the nurses then as well).
Slept again when I re-entered the room.

(She has 'her' bed on the geriatric ward planned for the 21rst. [They'll do the 'heart related stuff' there as well.] Third attempt ....)

I sure hope you can all have a comfortable, quiet break from medical activity for a bit.

One of the nurses asked me this evening if he had missed that I'd rented a room/bed in the hospital.

And yesterday, in the seniors home, a therapeut asked me how mother was doing .... "here now" - she thought, since she saw any other day that mother was back again.


But I can keep all in certain distance - I try to handle most of this as if it was 'client-related'. (Just now doing some legal stuff for my aunt, which really enjoys me.)

Hang in there Walter; you're doing as well as can be expected.

Mother has been x-rayed to day (due to long lasting coughing, but nothing has been found).
And she's been moved to a different room (just opposite to the nurses room).

On the other hand: "they" decided today that she just stays as long in hospital as the surgeons think it should be - which will be either the weekend or next week - and not go on the geriatric ward.
That had a lot to do with her wish to go home (which is very understandable after eight weeks in hospital). "They" think, any therapy which could be done on the geriatric would give her even more stress - and she wouldn't accept it.

I agree so far - that would be my points as weel.


But she wants to go home, not to the home.


Weighing up the pros and cons: 51% home, 49% hospital, geriatric ward.
However: both would/will be difficult.

I think this thread should have a nickname: SOS for Saving Our Sanity

I think I've learned a "rule" from personal experience: in their final and declining years the very old and the demented should be permitted to live where they feel most comfortable. There are exceptions I'm sure, but those exceptions to this "rule" are probably fewer than we may assume.

Indeed.

what is the safest option? what would the balance be if you were living as far away as your sister?

The safest would be a rehabilitation in the hospital.
Reasons pro are mainly that
- there are doctors 24/24
- therapists are present and only working on the ward (actually two wards)
- besides 'normal' rehabilitation, other (even minor) health problems would be look at at a high medical standard.

In the home, doctors have to be called, her therapist has to come, well, it's no hospital.

The contra is, of course, that mother wouldn't cooperate (fully) in the hospital. (That's not a look in the glass bowl but the experience of the last weeks. And it will get worse.)
Which is at least somehow understandable.


If I'd live farer away (= couldn't visit my mother so often [my sister didn't visit her all these weeks]), I certainly would prefer the hospital.


I think, however, that the home isn't that bad - they've got enough experiences, both with such illnesses as well as especially with mother.


If mother could (could, not would) cooperate a bit more, could understand a bit more ...
I (we) have to accept this as part of her illness.

Walter - may I say I concur with JLN, and while each case must be individually examined, obviously, it may be relevant to mention here that near my old home in Bel-Air California (LA) was the house where President Reagan (by that time hopelessly demented) and Mrs Reagan lived; a year or so before his death, the president broke his hip (and femur as well, though it may have been additional bones) and Mrs Reagan decided against surgery, asking only that he be kept as comfortable as possible.

I don't know how much of that was known at the time - generally all of us with Siberian huskies or other galloping breeds of dogs met before dawn in nearby parks (and all security personnel loved our dogs, figuring, rightly, the dogs are more likely to spot suspicious characters than even the best secret service agent) so we exchanged what news we had. None of us repeated anything to any newsperson, though to their credit these people turned out to be very discreet as well. Sorry I know no more about Mrs Reagan's considerations, or to what extent they might be pertinent to you, but perhaps some public info may have percolated up after all these years?

Is there a prognosis of a full (ish) medical recovery for your mother, Walter? or will it be in and out, in and out for the foreseeable future (if she returns to home/the home at this point)? will your mother's co-operation with treatment at home/the home make enough of a difference in her recovery to consider the future back-and-forth?

I understand the "could" v "would" point well.

The home (v home or hospital) does seem the best alternative, but after yesterday's discussion with hamburger about a somewhat different issue, I'm giving a lot more consideration to the pros and cons of movement between facilities.

I concur.

It's always been my policy to never agree with anything helen (high seas) posts, on the other hand, sometimes she's right (most likely by accident)