My mom is 91, some mild dementia, bad balance, some falls she keeps hidden from us. Lived independently and was driving until a couple of months ago when she had an accident and we said, No more!" About a month ago, we noticed some major changes in memory and she was beyond confused with tv remotes and portable phones. We were with her each day, but at night it appeared she was roaming through her condo tending to different things. We decided to bring her to dr and they said she had a UTI. Tried antibiotics and she reacted to those first two doses and her speech stopped and her memory was really bad. We went immediately to ER and she was admitted for a week for iv antibiotics. Her memory was in and out, forgot my dad was dead, so that was very difficult. She’s now been in rehab for a couple of weeks and is to be discharged in a week. We are scrambling to line up home care, but she doesn’t think she needs it. Friend suggested cameras in the house and remove all financial stuff and valuables. Her memory has come back, but it will never be great. We had found a senior place that we could have caregiver live in her apt there,but she is saying no. So we will go with home care in her condo and I feel she will be bored. We have been with her most day time and early evening hours, so when she’s home with care, I know she will miss the attention. Certainly we will check on her all of the time, but it is going to be a battle having someone with her. I pray we find decent help and she is accepting of it. Main bonus is she will have someone who can bring her out and about and she won’t have to wait for someone to drive her. I keep telling all of my friends to investigate places before you need them. We had one day to figure out rehab and it was so hard. I cried as I walked out of first place, knowing I would never put mom there. This place has been good, but we are there each day and I wonder if you didn’t have family helping you, would you still be waiting for your call light to be answered. My dad was such a good patient as he was dying. My mom, while not dying, is not such a good patient. I pray I handle whatever comes my way as I age with grace and make it easy for my kids.
This is a hard road you are on. Be sure you set aside some self care time for yourself, or burn out will hit you.
There is no perfect right answer, so do your best in researching, seeking counsel, and then make a decision. You can always change your decision if the at home care doesn’t work out.
The state my mom lives in has a senior program that oversees nursing homes and assisted living. I was able to search ratings and complaints for the places we visited. Speaking with these state professionals gave me perspective. They told me financial complaints are more common, as people get frustrated dealing with insurance and Medicare, and to focus on complaints about patient care.
Also, staff turnover is huge red flag.
I am dealing with this situation now with my mom. You can ask questions or PM me. This is your new job, with so many components. Find your team of helpers, both paid and voliunteers.
Neighbors and church friends, other family members, there is always something they can do to help. A daily phone call, a meal, a visit, can help reduce your stress level.
Hugs to you.
My friend’s MIL broke her hip and was in a facility that offers all levels of care, from full medical rehab to apts where people live but come and go as they please, meals in the room to meals in several different dining rooms to kitchenettes in the apartments. Lots of activities. I was ready to move in! MIL couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
These decisions are hard. Good luck in setting up good care. There are senior day cares at many churches to give the seniors somewhere to go and socialize. If she has activities from her past that she enjoyed, try to keep them up (bridge, luncheons, church groups).
Aging parents, and witnessing the decline of one with dementia is so hard. My father had dementia caused by micro strokes and erratic blood pressure. He and his wife were unfortunately living abroad at the end of his life, so I wasn’t able to be with him like I would have liked. His dementia sounds like it was more pronounced that your mother’s, but he had a similar effect from a UTI infection. His dementia symptoms rapidly ramped up. I remember being shocked that a UTI could do that to a person, having never heard of that correlation before. I am glad your mother is still able to have some quality of life and it is a blessing you can be close to her, as hard as the road may be.
@jmmom join us at the parents taking care of parents thread. We have all been down or planning to be down that road.
My mom lived in a place similar to what @twoinanddone describes. It was incredibly expensive, but a great community with everything available. My mom especially liked it that the dining room servers were local high school and college students. Residents were friendly and many said they should have moved there before they did. It’s a lot easier to adjust to a new setting while you are more mobile and more sharp.
My mom who was normally pretty clear headed would get almost instant dementia when she was on Levaquin for UTIs. She didn’t get that way on other antibiotics. We had to make sure she never got that drug. I don’t know what your mom was on but sometimes it’s the UTI causing the cognitive symptoms and sometimes it might be the drugs they are using to treat it.
“Instant dementia” is delirium — fluctuating awareness, confusion, sometimes hallucinations. It’s triggered by infection, some meds (though I have never heard of levaquin doing it before), even just by being in the hospital. It seldom happens to people without at least some cognitive decline— and it can take weeks to resolve. Sorry that you and your mom are going through that.
@jmmmom Here is a link to the thread mentioned in #4
The agency i moonlight with always reminds caregivers that if a client is acting more confused than usual to request a urine screening. We catch UTIs often.
A good care provider will make sure your mom stays busy. Help the aide to identify activities your mom enjoys. And some of us carry games and crafts with us to suggest - sometimes dementia leads people to enjoy things we never enjoyed before (my FIL loved BINGO after dementia but hated it before).
There is usually a policy that if the aide takes your mom to a meal or a movie or bowling or whatever costs money that the aide’s expenses are covered by the client. You may be paying the agency $25 an hour but she’s getting about $11.
Been there, done that between my grandmother and my dad. Dig around on the internet for the state inspections of nursing homes in your area and read why they got dinged. Some are minor while others are major. When I visited nursing homes, I checked two things. One the sniff test. When you walk in the door, what do you smell? Does it smell like disinfectant or of dirty diapesr? The second thing I checked for is how far I could get before being stopped and questioned. Some places I was greeted immediately others I could get at least half way thought the halls before being questioned. That gave me an idea about security. Also search the newspapers for the nursing home. Did a patient wander off or was their an article about a state inspection?
Sign her up for Lifeline. Yes, it really works. My daughter had a friend who worked the phones. Some elderly would contact them just to ask them to have one of their children call, others just to have outside contact (short chat) other than emergencies. Clearly post in several places, especially close to a phone, emergency contact numbers. Children, physician etc. This way if anything happens, 911, caregiver or visitors know immediately who to contact. Are there any geriatric physicians in your area? They are more familiar with drugs, illnesses and how the elderly, like children, react to them.
What is offered in your area may vary. Here there are churches that have their own meals on wheels type of thing. A church member brings a meal and stays and visits for a while. A few hands of cards, or checkers or just chats. They also watch them eat. Again, clearly posted phone numbers can come into play here, where they can contact someone about any change that they might see. Home health aides are offered by a couple of organizations here including the Y. They do a variety of things from running errands, taking them to the doctor to giving them a shower or doing laundry.
It is much easier to get someone into a nursing home directly from a hospital admission than to just take them over. You may not get the home that you like the best, but by checking them out beforehand and again during the hospitalization, you have a better idea of your top 5 or 3 and the hospital social worker will check on bed availability. If there is a chance that her funds could run out and that she would end up on medicaid, you want to be sure that the home takes medicaid. It is easier to get placement in a home as self pay than on medicaid. Also audit the bills. Mom used to get a couple of hundred off my grandmothers bill every month when they were charging for diapers and diaper changes. An aide told mom that gram gets up and goes to the bathroom so she didn’t wear diapers. One thing we did find out is that the nursing home administrator gets a percent of the self pay funds. The higher the bill, the more they get. Nursing homes use their own pharmacies and doctors, so drug charges may be higher. Also any time they are on an antibiotic, as long as dairy isn’t contraindicated or if she will eat it, give her yogurt every day to help replace the good bacteria that the antibiotic kills off and help to prevent things like C-diff and fungus (thrush, yeast infections).
It isn’t an easy situation and it is stressful. I wish you a lot of luck with it.
We found that some extended care facilities will accept mail order meds if your family member subscribes to a plan, we found this to be a huge saving over using the facility’s pharmacy. My mother was on a prophylactic antibiotic for chronic UTI’s, we also had her on a probiotic.
When we were looking for a care home for my Mum when she was in hospital after breaking her hip, one of the care homes asked us if she had dementia. We said that she had not been diagnosed with it but did seem very confused since she had been in hospital. They immediately asked about UTIs and that was where we first learned that a UTI in an elderly person can cause confusion. What surprised us was that the hospital did not seem aware of this.
My mom had minor memory issues about 5 years ago, and ended up hospitalized showing severe signs of dementia from a UTI. Her symptoms were confusion and memory loss. She had to move in with us afterwards. She could eventually take care of herself, but didn’t drive. Last year she took another step backwards after a different infection. Now she needs full assistance with everything. It’s shocking how fast they can go downhill from infections. She was never the type to go to doctors, so is hard to convince when things become urgent.
sounds just like my Mum. And she didn’t like to talk about things like the UTI to her doctor because “it’s just one of those women things”. And yes, the downhill spiral can be very shocking at a certain age.
Please stress to her the need to stay hydrated! My mom went through this and we attribute the UTIs, and related symptoms, to her lack of hydration. We really need to push liquids with her.
Cranberry juice will help prevent UTI’s. It raises the acidity level. My sister has always been prone to UTI’s and keep bottles of it at home. If she even thinks she is getting one, she starting drinking it and it seems to take care of it.
Cranberry juice did nothing for me. I even tried concentrated cranberry pills. It turns out I’m in the small percentage of women who has bacteria stick to the urinary tract like velcro! I have had a lot of tests run, and that’s all they can figure out. I’ve done everything suggested and nothing works. So I take a low-dose antibiotic every day. If I forget to take the pill two days in a row, I get a UTI! The antibiotic I take is not one that bacteria get resistant to, thank goodness.
This is why I’m glad I wasn’t born 50 years earlier. I wouldn’t have made it to 55, for sure.
@MaineLonghorn Do you take D-Mannose? It is supposed to help with the bacteria sticking.
@Midwest67, no, that’s something I hadn’t heard of! I will look into it, thanks! I would love to stop taking antibiotics every day.