My mom has lived in a memory care facility for almost 4 years. She had a hard time accepting that she lived in a general space with others and only a small bedroom/bathroom to call her own. She had lived by herself for 50 years before dementia. Her dementia is considered moderate. Recently she fell and broke her humerus just below the shoulder joint, fortunately in her non dominant arm. She is under hospice care due to fistulas between her colon and her bladder and vagina. This causes pretty much constant uti's and it is expected she will have a severe infection eventually that will cause her death. She was fairly independent before the fall, walking with a rollater fairly well, dressing herself and getting in and out of bed to toilet. She has had two insignificant falls prior to this last one with no injuries. She values her alone time in her room and is very introverted. The orthopedic physician we saw after her hospital visit for xrays did not believe she was a candidate for surgery mostly because her bones are too porous to hold the plates and screws needed for repair. Also, with dementia she won't follow instructions and forgets she has an injury. She was given pain meds and a flimsy sling. I replaced the sling with one that is more sturdy and she wore that for 5 weeks before she started taking it off and screaming at anyone who tried to put it back on. She is on 3 pain medications, two of which are narcotics. I have had the dose of one of those reduced this week. She has also been on two anti anxiety meds to try to control her outburst at people and kicking and punching her caregivers. She is having pretty strong hallucinations. I have had one of the antianxiety drugs removed just today thinking she is having a drug interaction. She also was treated this week for a uti as some of her symptoms can be caused by that.
Today it occurred to me that her problems with her caregivers (screaming for them to get out, kicking and punching at them) may stem mostly from them just being in her space, especially at night, when she wants most to be alone. They have to be in the room to assist her to the bathroom (which she does 5 or 6 times a night due to the constant uti symptoms) since she transports in a wheelchair for now, but is there some way we could make them seem less visible or intrusive?
I am so very sorry. This must be awful for you to witness. And awful for her to endure. I don't understand, with Hospice there, the reluctance to put her out of pain even if it shortened her life.
I am dreadfully sorry.
I'm sorry you're going thru such a thing right now, both of you. May God bless you and give you the strength to endure this difficult time.
You can no longer reason with your Mom. Just enjoy the time u have with her and allow Hospice to help her.