Oh @Surfcity I am so sorry. Visiting my dad in MC a while back there was a sweet couple, they both had dementia, but the wife’s dementia was REALLY bad (the crazy agitated sort of dementia). She constantly was accusing the husband of cheating on her. One day she got a knife off the table and went after him during lunch. Of course it was in slow motion so the staff was able to stop her. But she was sent to a psych facility and never came back. It was the talk of the MC among the other residents for quite a while.
It has been over three months since we have seen my dad. It makes me sad. Cases in my area have really gone up, so I imagine it will be quite some time until I get to see him again. We talked to him on Father’s Day. It was more successful than I thought. After initially telling the staff to get away from him he eventually took the phone to talk. He got the See’s Candy we sent and he asked when we were going to visit.
@surfcity that is heart-wrenching. I am so sorry. (Do they have to pay for the other room?) I wonder if a geriatric psychiatrist could help with medication. Sorry if you have already tried that.
@MaineLonghorn insulin really complicates things. Will assisted living even take him? Can he administer himself?
COVID remains so tough for everyone. I still get one outside visit a month with my mother, supervised by management, and two interactions per resident each week, meaning window visit or Facetime. Every night I tell her I am looking for an apartment, and every morning she forgets.
Good news though, she got a haircut today. The hairdresser was not considered essential and the residents were starting to look a little wild!
@surfcity you must be feeling kind of insecure and threatened by the ED’s comments. I hope the separation works out while other things are considered.
@surfcity , I am experiencing something similar with my Mom. She has hit(!) the staff a few times and missed even more. Thank goodness she’s about 4’ 10" and about 90 pounds. My mom herself was abused as a child but made the decision to raise my sister and I differently and we were spanked very, very infrequently. As an adult she was a huge volunteer, kind and generous. With dementia she is often angry and frankly, kinda mean. It makes me so sad.
“As an adult she was a huge volunteer, kind and generous”.
Keep these memories active. Dementia sometimes makes us forget the people they were before @walkinghome.
My mom seems to have given up. She doesn’t know when she will ever be able to see anyone she loves, and has just about reached the end of her ability to care enough to eat, drink, or move. So hard that someone with a loving family and an intact intellect can’t have the medicine she needs, which is the company of loved ones. That would bring her back, but is not available to her.
Thank you all for your comments and concern. It is really helpful.
@compmom it was a very good conversation with the ED. She is new (started 2 days before shutdown!) and IMHO it was a good change for the facility. She recently let go the director of nursing which I thought was a great move as I did not think she was good. The ED was telling me that while this is a serious situation, she wants to keep them in the same community.
She is willing to put dad in a separate room and see how it goes, for no extra charge. If she has a new person that wants to move in, we will have to talk. And if it seems like a permanent move for dad, I would have to pay for it, which would almost double their monthly cost, so I need to think about that. I am hoping that if they ever can open up again, that would help alleviate some of the issues.
They are both also seen regularly by the geriatric psychiatrist or NP. Both have been on SSRIs for a while, initially dad was depressed after his accident. Then mom needed it to help her cope with the stress of caring for dad.
We added Xanax PRN a while ago and mom is now on trazodone. There is talk of trying Depakote too. My conversations have always been around the idea that, while no one wants to “drug up” a senior, it is also not fair to keep them in a state of constant agitation and anxiety. Mom is no longer able to manage her stress with the help of a therapist because that abstract thinking is gone. So I am not opposed to medicinal intervention.
One of the biggest weights on my mind is thinking about how awful they would feel if they were in their right minds. My mom was always a little high strung but dad always talked about her and acted with her like she hung the moon. Even when I was a typical teen who “hated” my mom, he would validate my feelings but then tell me how much he loved being with her even when she was a little bossy or prickly.
@surfcity , That’s got to be so hard. I do try to separate what I think of as my true Mom from the way she’s behaving now.
@surfcity so glad there is no extra charge right now.
We have had bad experiences (GI) with depakote but of course that is individual.
Our geriatric psychiatrist was really big on gabapentin. Helps with anxiety and sleep, as well as pain. Don’t mean to add to an already long list but it can be helpful for some. This was in addition to an SSRI.
Hahaha @compmom my senior dog is on gabapentin and the vet just added trazodone. My dad was on gabapentin shortly after his accident. It is so funny that my geriatric dog is exhibiting a lot of signs of canine dementia and he acts SO similar to my dad sometimes.
I appreciate all comments on meds. I don’t know much about depakote but it sounds like a heavy-duty med. The NP was reluctant to Rx that until we upped the Zoloft or Trazodone, I forget which. Good thing I am not in charge of administering everyone’s meds or my parents might end up taking heart worm pills too!
I have med burnout from administering them to my son for years. When I was in Texas people kept asking me for specifics about my parents’ meds and I just couldn’t deal with it.
@surfcity I have never heard of Depakote being used for anxiety. We have used it for seizures or migraines. It is also used for bipolar disorder but we have stayed away from it for that. It is indeed pretty heavy duty.
I had an old dog with dementia. He would sundown and go in circles under the table, and act disoriented. Maybe he should have had some evening gabapentin!
My dad is on a low dose of Depakote. It was prescribed by the geriatric psychiatric PA. I think it helps a lot. He did not do well on risperidone.
That is so interesting about the Depakote. There must be an exclusively geriatric use. @tx5athome, does your dad have dementia? Any nausea with it? Good to know and I withdraw my previous opinion!
ps @surfcity I have to say my mother hasn’t circled under the table yet 
@compmom my Dad has Alzheimer’s dementia and he can get very agitated. He doesn’t seem to have any side effects to it.
Speaking of drugs… First thing is many drugs can be used off label for many things.
My mother 91, came back from the hospital… Again,. But she’s doing really well. The cardiac team reevaluated all her meds and eliminated like 3 of them. She feels so much better and her blood pressure is more even keel now. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to ask for them to evaluate what their taking. Each medication has their own side effects and combines with other meds differently. Just a suggestion.
My sister sent me a photo today of our parents working on a huge jigsaw puzzle, their second one in a week. I wish I could post it here. Such a miracle.
My mom has some short term memory loss. Today, for the first time ever, she refused to go with a family member who came to pick her up and spend the day with her. I’m sure the family member was hurt, but I’m sure he was respectful about her polite but adamant refusal.
My sister, BIL and mom went to the country club for poolside lunch (burgers). It was OK, but so many people came up to mom and TOUCHED her even though my BIL kept asking them to distance. (I imagine they wanted to express their sympathy at dad’s recent death). (Fortunately numbers of active cases in our county are pretty low, but still, it’s tough to keep people safe when others insist on trying to touch our loved ones.)
It’s awkward. Normally mom would NEVER do anything that might hurt anyone’s feelings but I guess she’s decided she ought to be able to do what she wants and be where she wants.
I think the psych NP is thinking Depakote or Risperdal for more than just anxiety. Mom’s stroke really affected her personality and sense of time and place. She sometimes accuses dad of being a terrible husband and father and called me one time to say how mad she was that he never provided for his family and she was forced to get a job to feed me (which could not be further from the truth, she was a SAHM by choice until I left for college and dad was a devoted father).
So I think maybe they are hoping those drugs, if used, would tamp down the paranoia.
On the senior dog side, I can report that I finally was able to get the dog groomed and it helped tremendously!! LOL. While he still sometimes wakes up and stares at the wall, he is much less anxious and paces a lot less. I guess his coat was matted and possibly bothering him and I am sure the hair in his face/eyes was not helping. I don’t know why they did not deem groomers “essential” during the shutdown.
I don’t think a haircut will help mom though
Aww, sorry for the tangent, but I miss Chester, my dog! Even when pacing and circling and staring. I am glad your dog has some relief.
My mother actually finally got a haircut. She was looking like someone on a back ward, as they used to say. I noticed she put on lipstick so for her, the haircut was a mood elevator!
I still think about taking my mother out. Getting an apartment with her. I have so many questions and can think of so many reasons not to. For those of you with elderly parent(s) in your home, do they stay on the first floor? Do you have a shower on the first floor or have you modified a bathtub, or put in hand rails? Or do you have a stair glide? Do you cook every meal for them? Disable the stove when not cooking yourself? How do they react to that? With moderate dementia, are they ever left alone for an hour or two or three? Do any of your parents have cocktail hour and insist on too many?!
Most of all, do any of you rent rather than own? Apartment rather than house? Does anyone have an experience where the landlord allowed a stair glide or installation of safety bars or walk-in tub? Is there discrimination, meaning will realtors and landlords find ways to refuse us?
If you have aides or nurses come in, are you screening them for COVID? Requiring face shields and supervising their sanitizing habits? Or doing things yourself for now?
Lots of questions. Thanks for any info.