An update on my 82yr old mum who had a major ischaemic stroke during heart surgery end of August. She has done amazingly well to have got through a coma and weeks of recovery and rehab in 3 different hospitals but because of severe vision and cognitive (memory) deficits was unable to go home and is now in a nursing home near my sister in Wells. After 5 weeks she hasn't settled at all. She says she wants to kill herself and feels she is slowly going mad in there. She doesn't like the staff (and complains that she can't understand their Polish accents) and that she is in constant pain from a UTI which never seems to go away although she did need an antibiotic for one last month. She also tries to tell us that her phone calls are being listened to, that "terrible things" are happening, including her being drugged! We know this is a decent home from personal referrals but it's so hard not being able to go in. Because of Covid we haven't been able to give her a hug for nearly 3 months. We can do 15 minute window visits twice a week but they seem to distress her even more than phonecalls. The home manager says she joins in with activities and social events in the home and is only like this with us, but she has always been a very private person so I doubt she has opened up to anyone in there.
I dont know whether this is depression, early signs of dementia or just a massive personality change brought on by the stroke? Both my sister and I found it so upsetting when she told us on Christmas day she wanted to die and she'll probably never see us again.
This is such a sad read. Your Mum sounds very much like my late Mum. She never had a stroke but she was 94 when she entered into a care home for her own welfare and safety. I say this because she point blank refused to go into care despite being told she had to by Social Services for years. Your Mum's state of mind will have been affected in some way by her stroke but she may have got used to the regime in hospital and now there has been a change in surroundings she feels 'threatened' by the changes she is experiencing.
It's a tricky situation because you don't want to challenge the care home staff for fear it will make things worse for her. When this happened to us with my Mum, I asked for a Dr to visit her to address her low mood and extreme behaviour such as saying the care staff were grabbing her arms and hurting her, trying to poison her and leaving her hours in wet nappies. She also complained she couldn't understand what the nurses were saying as they deliberately whispered when they spoke (she was deaf and refused to wear aids) so she thought they were planning things to do to her.
The care home will have your Mum under the care of their GP so you could ask the Matron if she could arrange for them to visit as you are concerned about her depression. It is so hard for families at the moment due to Covid but maybe the GP could ring you when they have seen Mum to put your mind at ease.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with your mother. It does sound very similar. I know it's going to have been so unsettling and disorientating for mum to have moved into a strange place after 3 different hospitals and the slow realisation she is never going home again. Today was a new low as she is now alleging sexual abuse by the male carers. I haven't mentioned it to the manager but the staff may have overheard the phone call. I read that dementia and depression are sometimes difficult to isolate in elderly, but am going to ask for a mental health needs assessment and also speak to her GP tomorrow. You're right it's all so much harder with Covid. I'm scared it will be too late by the time we are allowed in and mum won't even recognise us.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with your mother. It does sound very similar. I know it's going to have been so unsettling and disorientating for mum to have moved into a strange place after 3 different hospitals and the slow realisation she is never going home again. Today was a new low as she is now alleging sexual abuse by the male carers. I haven't mentioned it to the manager but the staff may have overheard the phone call. I read that dementia and depression are sometimes difficult to isolate in elderly, but am going to ask for a mental health needs assessment and also speak to her GP tomorrow. You're right it's all so much harder with Covid. I'm scared it will be too late by the time we are allowed in and mum won't even recognise us.
I do sympathise and I know exactly how you feel. My Mum prior to going into the care home accused her home care people of stealing money, locking her in her house so she couldn't get out (she never went out because she was immobile) accusing us of abandoning her and having her 'sectioned', accusing neighbours of abuse and oh, I could go on forever. I have lost count of the number of apologetic phone calls to council office staff, social services staff, home care staff I've had to make over the years. The council were ready to evict her and take her to court for harrassment but she didn't care (her words not mine!) She would go to jail if necessary if they came to her house again!
Although she was never diagonsed with dementia mainly because her GP was so fed up with her constant phone calls to the surgery of 'non-existent' ailments that she was constantly phoning ambulances for, he gave up visiting. I have since read that there is a type of dementia in the elderly, paranoid dementia, when people have an obsessive suspicion of others and accuse them of various extremeties that are not true. This is mainly directed at the family rather than being taken up with the person they believe is harming them because they are the nearest in line and therefore hope that the family will react and make everything better again.
I do hope you get some help for Mum (and your family) from the GP as it is soul destroying watching the one you love deteriorating in front of you and being helpless.