Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

Yep, I agree. Strike while the iron is hot, Walter. If she's starting to think it's a good idea to move, find a good place and move her. You have a right to a life and she will be happier and safer when she's out of that house.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Good morning!

I've been locked out of A2K due to some technical problems, but now I'm back, thank goodness.

Walter - could your mother and/or aunt settle for Assisted Living? It hasn't the psychological finality of a nursing home, but there is a certain amount of supervision, and help is readily available in the building. Or does your area have such?

The nursing home where Bob is now is one of the best, but that doesn't subtract much from the grimness. The place is attractive and someone is always vacuuming or scrubbing; the flowers are fresh; the staff are knowledgeable and extremely kind; the food ranges from acceptable to extremely good; and every endeavor is made to keep up the residents' interest in life (which I'm not sure is always a such great thing, to be frank).

If your ladies are capable of true social interaction, a nursing home may not give them that opportunity, because the level of mental capacity isn't usually very high. Assisted Living has the advantage of a much more normal level of this, with greater preservation of independence and dignity, as well.

I don't want to discourage you, just when your ladies are beginning to come around to the idea of moving into a more appropriate setup than their current one, but if Assisted Living is available, and they are physically able to take advantage of it, I'd say go for that rather than a nursing home.

Noddy - can you get towels that are so totally hideous that Mr Noddy wouldn't touch them with a barge pole? Of course that means you would have to live with them in all their ugliness, but compromises may have to be made...

Tomkitten--



Mr. Noddy's aesthetic sense was never highly developed and his appreciation for the finer things in life is fraying along with the rest of his once fine mind.

Six years ago I switched to navy blue towels because he couldn't be bothered to rinse the dirty soap suds off his hands. He was "too busy".

Mr. Noddy is now a creature of passionate impulses. I raised two sons and six stepsons and evidently I haven't seen the last of the Fledgling Adolescent Male Ego.


I'm glad Bob is settling in.

I had a family friend who used to refer to her highly regarded nursing home as "Grandview Prep", "Grandview" being the local non-sectarian cemetery.

Noddy, adolescence is precisely the word my mother used in describing my father's mental state. Unfortunately, it continued down the developmental ladder from there. It's hard. Are you able to get some free time to decompress and de-stress?

Walter, my thoughts are with you and Mrs. Walter. You're both going through a lot right now. Best wishes on her continued recovery and to you as you face some difficult decisions.

JPB--

I'm making free time. Current project is to make it clear that since the Township has opened a graveled walking tract that I intend to walk every day that schedules and weather permit.

Mr. Noddy has decided that it is silly to get in the car and drive to a track to take a walk. Yes, he admits walking is dangerous on the local steep, winding roads, but...

I pay for my wicked indulgence on the walking track by listening to iterated detail of Mr. Noddy's aches and pains which make it impossible for him to exercise. He's tried to convince me that his doctors have forbidden exercise, but I refuse to be bamboozled.

He doesn't have to exercise, but I'm not swallowing fibs, either.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Bully for you, Noddy! Keep on truckin' - especially now that you have a track to truck on...

Tomkitten--

I'm lucky. Mr. Noddy is still capable of some flexibility and change.

Today I met a black lab in training as a service dog--he had to ignore me and he didn't want to. I also watched a red-tailed hawk harvest a field mouse. The critter had been tempted out of the standing corn by the gleaning possibilities in the stubble.

Next week, I'm off to the Boston area.

I'm glad about your walks, Noddy. Somewhat worried about your way to the walks... don't want you falling, thinking you have a serious slope, but maybe I misremember.

Delighted you'll be doing Boston, I seem to remember for family. Any chance of seeing Those-Who-Wash-Their-Hair (taunting, but fondly) and the Prince?

The gravel path is much safer than the local byways--paricularly when I take my cane.

I carry a policeman's whistle, so if I fall and can't get up, I can toot out dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot. There are usually one or two other people walking.

Both femurs are threaded with steel rods which are bolted top and bottom. A fall with fracture would be painful, but not acutely painful, and I have no danger of bleeding to death.

I am woman. Hear me roar.

Noddy's indeed a woman, and I've heard her roar :wink:

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Tonight, the psychiatrist will see my aunt. (I think, she's not eating because she' got troublle to "stay clean" [re "big business"].)
She's so .... well, whatever: most patients on psychiatric wards behave better.

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Mrs. Walter will get an abdominoscopy on Friday (her family doctor just arranged that) and then have the gallbladder operation next week.


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Mother has "decided" that her sister (my aunt) needed someone to talk more: so she send the lady downstairs - I don't expect that she'll come more often now.
However, mother mentioned that hse had been in the daytime care some days already ...

Walter--

Thanks for the kind words.

You have your hands full this month. I was going to say in an ideal world, troubles would come one at a time, but given your schedule, you'd be having serial troubles from now until Easter.

Hold your dominion.

So the psychiatrsit has been visiting my aunt.
(Actually, he arrived an hour earlier - but phoned me, if I could be there.)

He changed the medication, and will visit her again after some time.

(I gave some quite professional opinion about the why's and an oral anamnesis.)

My aunt's only pain was if she could keep her sleeping pills. She not only could but gets another additonally. (Which actually just is another drug, to be taken at niht.)

After the doctor had left, my aunt could move at all, even couldn't sit in a chair.
I cured that with some simple methods of social work (which you don't learn at university besides you attended courses by Walter Hinteler) within a quarter of an hour.


Seriously, I doubt that a lot will change (besides the symptoms of his heavy depression).

But time will tell ....

Has she eaten, Walter? As I'm sure you know, it is not unusual for an elderly person to lose the will to live and take matters into their own hands by refusing to eat. She may be reaching that point.

No, she hasn't eaten - besides puddings acouple of times daily, high proteine-vitamin stuff I give her, and some potatoes and vegies the one or other day.

But that is, I think, part of her depression: she soils herself (the **** is everywhere, I mean). And to avoid that .... no food.

But, indeed, I'm really waiting that she gets so weak and/or shows dehydration reactions, so she can be taken to the geriatric ward at a normal hospital.

I can't say as I blame either of you. It must be awful for you both. It really does sound like she needs to be in a different setting. I hope there is some relief in sight soon.

Please give Mrs Walter my warmest regards. I assume the procedure this week is day-surgery or outpatient (no overnight stay), correct? I'll be thinking of you both on Friday.

Thanks, JPB!

On Friday, it is just a short(er) stay in the hopsital - she's on the operation plan for next week already and will get the exact date afterwards (and then stay in hospital between 3 and five days).

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
You sure do have a lot on your plate, Walter. It sounds as though a nursing home is the next step unless you are planning artificial feeding and hydration.

Anyway, whatever happens and whatever decisions you make, you have my serious sympathy - no decision, however small, comes without its measure of subsequent uncertainty, so brace yourself for attacks of unearned guilt.

To a more cheerful subject - I'm glad things are coming together for Mrs Walter, and I'll be thinking of her next week.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
I ran into one of the physical therapists at Clark House, and she gave me the very good news that as long as he uses his walker, Bob can cruise up and down the corridors with only me in attendance. He still can't go around alone, but he's come along so well that we don't need an aide; it seems that I will do.

Re: Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved


That would be done here in a hospital.

A nursing home/senior residence would be best for both of them, from my/our point of view.
But since it is doubtfull that such a move can be done successfully without their content ...

What I do know, however, is that if one has to go to the hospital, the other "can be moved" easier ...

TomKitten--

Excellent news.

Walter--

Hang in there.