Your say / Dementia
Don’t put your mum in a home, Mrs Worthington
The author of this letter to the editor wishes to remain anonymous
Last week, a packed conference organised by the local Alzheimers’s Charity BRACE at the Future Inn, Bristol heard speakers explain why there is hope in the fight against dementia. The conference unanimously rejected the proposal for a “bounty” of £55 to be paid to doctors diagnosing a dementia case. Despite an upbeat mood from the conference, much still needs to be done.
The “glamour” charities, cancer and heart research, attract huge amounts of public support. As we live to be much older, it is more probable that we will be afflicted by some form of dementia, but it gets far less funding for research into a cure, despite what David Cameron said in March 2012: “One of the greatest challenges of our time is what I’d call the quiet crisis, one that steals lives and tears at the hearts of families, but that relative to its impact is hardly acknowledged.”
My personal experience is that the medical profession is itself having difficulty in recognising the problem, and preparing relatives and family in how to deal with its devastating effects.
Terrible consequences
“Don’t put your mother in a home, Mrs Worthington.” Noel Coward’s original lyrics about putting daughters on the stage were funnier, but both predict terrible consequences.
My mother, nearly 90, had been living alone for many years, fiercely independent and valuing her home with its memories and privacy. However in the last year she had become increasingly housebound, and crippled by painful arthritis throughout her body. Reluctant to make a fuss, she did agree to go and stay in a local care home for a few weeks while the family made improvements in the domestic arrangements, and organised regular home visits by carers as well as ourselves.
The care home is a bright, modern, purpose-built place, in the same street as her house, and so friends and neighbours could pop in and see her at any time. She had a sunny room with en-suite bathroom and we brought in extra things, bits of furniture to make it more like home-from-home.
Lost interest in everything
“Regard it as a stay in a hotel,” we thought, with meals served and people to look after her, entertainments and activities organised so she would be less isolated than at home.
Mother had retained a sharp and clear mind, and was an avid reader of books, newspapers and Radio Times. But at this time something terrible happened. It became quite evident that she was not at all happy in the home. She started to get angry with everybody and lost interest in everything. Then she complained of having violent dreams and serious stomach pains.
We called in her doctor, who did not find anything wrong, “just indigestion”. We proposed that perhaps she should return home as she was unhappy here. But with a “waste not, want not” mentality she resolved to stay put for the full fortnight.
Fate dealt a cruel blow on the night before she was due to return home. She had a serious fall, badly breaking the femur close to an arthritic hip. About as bad as it could be. They admitted her to the local hospital A&E. And that is where the nightmare really started.
No longer the mum we knew
Mother’s mental state seemed to deteriorate rapidly. She was getting constantly agitated, having hallucinations, imagining all sorts of conspiracies. The medics dismissed it, “just typical of old people who get a bit confused”. Surgery to mend the broken bones went well enough, but mother continued to suffer ever worsening loss of memory and confusion. We were painfully aware of her change in personality and mood, among other symptoms. This person was no longer the mum we knew. In the end she went into a total physical and mental decline and died two weeks later.
It appears our mother was claimed by a terrible and irreversible onslaught of dementia, within the space of just a few weeks. What triggered this sudden decline? Not even the doctors and the hospital had understood what was happening; we were totally unprepared for it and did not know how to handle the situation. It is shocking how little awareness there is of this devastating and terrifying affliction.
Picture: Ocskay Mark / Shutterstock
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