My MIL has congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension and MS. The biggest problem is vascular dementia. She believes she can walk.
Does anyone else have this problem? She was discharged from hospice because she kept insisting she is fine and the staff believed her! We called a different hospice provider. She is 87. We are doing our best to keep her at home.
We are fortunate she has a dementia agency that schedules and provides her with daily help. The hospice agency that discharged her never consulted with us because it is her right to request that they didn’t - despite my husband’s POA and having all of her medical records. Her psychological evaluation shows her deficits, but she can mask her MCI. She is very delusional, paranoid, and noncompliant. Placing her into a nursing home would trigger a major catastrophic reaction. We have contacted another hospice agency that I hope will consult with us and review her care givers’ daily summaries.
I think her MCI is really mixed dementia - Alzheimer's disease. How else can she be so oblivious to her congestive heart failure? My mother had COPD and we had a general idea of what to expect. The only symptoms we know to look for are sudden weight gains 2-3 pounds. She can’t and won’t weigh herself daily. She absolutely believes she “is just fine”.
Wait a minute. She has dementia. The Hospice Staff was aware of this? But they took her word for it that she was ok and released her from their care based solely on her word? Wow. There was no care meeting or discharge planning involved? Somebody dropped the ball here.
So now she’s a fall risk? She probably needs 24/7 supervision. I know it’s important to you to keep her at home, but is it really the best for her? Do you think she might be better off in a facility where she would have care around the clock by trained staff members?
i might be tempted to speak with her primary care and ask for their opinion.
Her primary care doctor passed us off to a primary care doctor who sees her at home. Home visits are every three months. I had to take her by wheel chair for an office visit recently because she has to have a urine specimen collected by catheter. Neither the doctor or technician was able to insert a catheter. When I was helping her get dressed to leave, her bladder emptied..... further details are not necessary, however, having to bring her to the clinic was a mistake. No one understands the bind we are in. I do not fault my MIL. Families taking care of patients with dementia need to be listened to.
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I think her MCI is really mixed dementia - Alzheimer's disease. How else can she be so oblivious to her congestive heart failure? My mother had COPD and we had a general idea of what to expect. The only symptoms we know to look for are sudden weight gains 2-3 pounds. She can’t and won’t weigh herself daily. She absolutely believes she “is just fine”.
So now she’s a fall risk? She probably needs 24/7 supervision. I know it’s important to you to keep her at home, but is it really the best for her? Do you think she might be better off in a facility where she would have care around the clock by trained staff members?
i might be tempted to speak with her primary care and ask for their opinion.
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