What was condition of elder when placed in care?

My mom also went into care after a fall and it ended up being permanent. Messing up meds may have been a big part of it, but we did not really confirm that until later she had bottles lined up and was getting refills and swore she was not doubling up on one of them (suspected because because the way she had the bottles.) The drug in question possibly impaired her judgement as well as making her weak, and actually she had been covering up and denying a lot of problems even before that. Someone one wrote to me not to have guilt over the things you really could not reasonably have known at that time...we all struggle with leaving our loved ones autonomy as intact as possible and keeping them safe at the same time, and there comes a time it goes from difficult to impossible. All of us, naturally, wish it wasn't so!

SherylBeth, I'm glad that the seven day holder is working for your mother. It reached a point where it no longer did for my mother even with her husband and a helper there. I learned that they failure was never looking behind her until she had another seizure.

We helped my mom live in her mobile home until she could no longer walk. She was also becoming incontinent and could not get to the restroom. She could no longer pay her bills, cook meals (we had In home health care). She began seeing children that weren't there and hearing noises, and when she lite the gas stove one nite taking it apart and caught a towel on fire and then fell, it scared her and she used the life alert button she wore around her neck to call 911. They took her to the hospital and from there she went to a nursing home. She has no money for AL. It was the saddest day of our life when we had to make the decision to leave her there and sell her little mobike home. We are extremely sad to see her decline. It's been over 4 years now.

Sheryl, I think that for most of us, it's a fall that precipitates the move from living alone to needing someone there, or mom somewhere where there's supervision. Parent goes to rehab and discharge starts talking about what parent will need at home to be safe.

Yes she is on meds ...but she has a 7 day holder and i check it often to make sure shes on the right day and so forth. She is 86 and the decline from being okay to her current condition has been about 2 years. I do notice that she gets prickly more for no apparent reason. My sister is in bad health from strokes and cancer but mom almost seems to not focus on much but what is in her current world, like she only has room in her brain for her particular situation...when is her next dentist or dr appt, etc.

SherylBeth, is your mother on any meds? My mother started having trouble with her meds. Even if someone reminded her, she would forget them. If you asked her if she had taken them, her answer would be yes, but often she had forgotten to take them.

Mom has memory loss...for example, on the phone today she brought up 5 times that she received a sales tax rebate form in the mail. Every day she tells me 'im pretty mixed up today'. She cant follow conversations...too much info. No longer able to do her checkbook and isnt sure what to do with some of her mail. She is on a walker and has been for years, but so far is doing ok with her meds and hygiene. Doesnt want to go to an adult day center for socialization or anywhere actually. I live 20 miles from her and take care of most everything...but she wont let me move her closer to me yet because she says her little place is paid off and she wouldnt know where she was.

My mom was in Independent Living and had Mild Cognitive Decline when she had a stroke. She developed vascular dementia. We tried AL, but she could not remember press the button when she needed help, and she ended up falling in the first hour she was there. We transferred her to the memory care section, but she fell there too and broke her hip. She went into the nh and became ambulatory with a walker. She ended up in the hospital this summer with a serious pleural effusion which kept her bed bound for 5 days. Despite the best efforts of her pts, she is now in a wheelchair.

When she turned the gas stove on during a power outage so she could light a candle we knew she was no longer safe at home. Memory losses we could live with, but filling the kitchen with natural gas at 11PM ? Not negotiable.

It was bad enough that her neurologist had been suggesting assisted living for some time, but she would not go. When she did finally go, she fell and broke her hip. She was sent to a nursing home for PT to regain her ability to walk after surgery. She was never able to complete the PT because her dementia hindered her ability to stay focused on what she needed to do.

What is the extent of your mother's dementia?

Cmagnum...what was the extent of the dementia?

Vascular Dementia and fully ambulatory