Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dementia: Sprouts and Parsnips Pay Dividends

Mixed Dementia, Uncategorized,

 

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With the approval of staff on the Konar Suite, I decided to take ‘Sunday Lunch’ in for Maureen yesterday.  The look on her face when she saw sprouts and roast parsnips on her plate was a delight.  She thoroughly enjoyed her meal and dipped into the in-house menu for her sweet.  It didn’t matter that she wasn’t totally sure who I was because I had served up one of her favourite meals.

I’m going to take in another one of Maureen’s favourites today – a One Pot Special.  Sprouts will again be in the mix, as that wife of mine loves them.  I’m hoping that showing her that someone remembers her preferences will provide reassurance.

Steady progress is being made on the personal care front and Maureen is getting used to changing her clothes.  Staff on the Konar Suite have been really successful at easing her out of her old favourites into some newer gear.  It is lovely to see her in different outfits and further options will be in her wardrobe today.

I’m hoping that we will have another pre-lunch walk in the garden this morning.  Fresh air has always been nectar to Maureen!

 

Dementia: Sent To Coventry

Mixed Dementia, Uncategorized

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Maureen continues to be uncooperative with the regime in the Konar Suite.

She has ‘sent the medical staff to Coventry’  and refused an ECG yesterday.

Perhaps, this is part of her strategy to get back home to the Midlands.

She is very angry with me for ‘telling lies’ that have led to her incarceration

I look forward to hearing the plans of  the Multi-Disciplinary Team this morning

 

Dementia: Comin’ In and Out of Your Life

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The number of the week has always been one of our special songs:

 

With Maureen in a Care Home and about to be moved to an Acute Mental Health Unit (Konar Suite) in a couple of hours Barbara Streisand nails my feelings this morning.

When I visited Maureen last night I got a glimpse of life in her Care Home.  One of the carers was trying to deal with an aggressive resident who was lashing out verbally and physically.  Maureen was cowering within the relative safety of a friendlier crowd.  Her fear was palpable with concerns that nobody liked her and she was at risk of assault.  It took me quite some time to entice her to the safety of her room and nurse her to sleep.

This morning two Support Workers from The Home Treatment team will move her into the unknown – the Konar Suite.  I have been advised to leave it to them and visit in the afternoon after Maureen has been admitted.

The new from Alderlea this morning is that Maureen has had a restful night.  She stayed in her room until midnight then moved onto a sofa in one of the lounges.  I’m going to pop down with a new pair of thermal socks shortly – can’t have my dear wife having cold feet as she is transported to Konar!

 

 

Dementia: The Tipping Point

Mixed Dementia, Uncategorized, ,

I’m sure some readers of this Blog wonder what led me to change my mind about Care Homes and the Konar Suite?  Why had someone who hardly has a good word to say about Care Homes and was unconvinced about the Konar Suite changed his mind?

When I look back there were three main reasons.  Firstly, professional staff who I have a great deal of respect for continued to ask me to review my thinking.  Secondly,  when Maureen told me ‘she didn’t know where or who she was and had no idea what was going on’.  Thirdly, when she handed me this crumpled photograph and told me it was a bill:

As you can see I’ve straightened it out now: hence the distortions.  I wasn’t upset that it was one of our wedding photos.  What concerned me was that I had stood it on our mantelpiece on our Wedding Anniversary to try to remind Maureen that we were married.  I had played Wedding Day by the BeeGees every morning and told her how proud I was that she was my wife.  I had told her how much I loved her as the Brothers Gibb had sung this beautiful song.  I had put my hand next to hers as the music played so our wedding rings were touching.  Although she may have grasped what I was talking about at that time, this photograph became a bill: that was the Tipping Point

The news from AlderleaCare Home is that Maureen thinks she is in ‘Marks and Sparks’ trying to find the train station.  She is sleeping on a sofa just like she does at home and was still in the land of nod when I checked up on her early this morning.  I’m off to the Leisure Centre again shortly; to swim and then revitalise in the Health Suite.

Its the job, stupid

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A very forthright perspective from George Rook which deserves to be shared widely.

georgerook51's avatargeorge rook

Does dementia matter?

I am increasingly annoyed about why the majority of clinical staff do not see that caring for dementia is part of the job.

It’s as if… no, it really is that they are trained and developed during their working lives to do the traditional physical clinical work. To deal with the diseases and trauma they see every day.

So, pneumonia, cancer, prostatitis, back pain, arthritis, and everything else…these are what nurses, therapists and doctors do. They diagnose, treat, discharge.

And they’re really good at this. They’re professionals.

And they know and recognise that many patients have more than one condition. Multiple co-morbidities.

So for example, they’ll check blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and make sure the interdependencies and drug effects don’t conflict.

They’ll check that my eGFR is high enough to allow me to have an angina drug which might damage my kidney.

But it seems that…

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Dementia: The Only Protection Is Dharma

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Today’s Buddhist lesson is about protecting the mind:

I need some protection from the night-time routine as it was a problem again last night.  My painful shoulder was a reminder to proceed with caution so I backed off and took to the spare room.  Unfortunately, this did not help as ‘I was ignoring the fact that the children had nowhere to sleep’ and this heightened Maureen’s vitriol.   I managed a short sleep before being woken by someone knocking on the partition wall.   As I tentatively opened the door to the next room Maureen rushed into my arms.

It took me a while to reassure Maureen that she was safe from ‘foreigners who were trying to get her’.  They had been at the concert last night and had cornered her in the bedroom.  It didn’t take me long to grasp the source of her confusion.

I had left Maureen watching YouTube for over an hour in the evening as I searched for my missing house keys.  She seemed perfectly happy singing beautifully to all sorts of numbers: even in German and French as Andre Reui took his Strauss Orchestra around Europe.  That is why foreigners were dominating her thinking and had consequently become her adversaries.

I need to take advice on how to avoid the trials and tribulations of the last two nights.  This journey is so much easier on the body and mind when we sleep well together!

Dementia: Medication Is Not The Solution

Mixed Dementia, Uncategorized

Posted at 3 am:

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My early morning greeting from Maureen was not easy to handle.  She woke after we had both had a couple of hours rest wanting to go to the toilet.  I tried to direct her without success and received a barrage of complaints and insults: ‘there isn’t a ladies, the floor will be covered in pee, there is nowhere to sit down.’  Half an hour later I eased her upstairs and the deed was done – although she told me she had used the floor!

Once relief had taken place where to sleep became the next issue.  The familiar complaints of ‘everywhere smells, I wouldn’t get into bed with you and animals have been in the bed’ was played out; along with insults hurled in my direction.

Trazodone sits in the cupboard without an instruction leaflet and unopened.  The message has been that ‘it will help you’.  My research along with comments from many people who follow this blog suggest otherwise: Maureen doesn’t need a chemical cosh!

The Best Interest Meeting is scheduled for early November.  Such a prospect is no help to me in the early hours after World Alzheimer’s Day.  I’m hoping that this morning’s call to Single Point of Access will result in an immediate gathering where adequate care and coaching will be put in place.  Perhaps that would be an appropriate moment to hand back the bottle of Trazodone!

Update at 6.15 am:

Good News:  I managed to get further sleep and Maureen has a cold:  no wonder she was grotty when she woke earlier!

Bad News:  A  few days delay in the completion of our renovations due to an understandable mistake by a plumber yesterday.

 

Alzheimer’s . . . from the Daughter / Dad Perspective

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Raw honesty and clarity on World Alzheimer’s Day.

A Bit of Brian's Brilliance's avatarA Bit of Brian's Brilliance

In honor of World Alzheimer’s Month, my daughter and I were asked to write a few words as to what it’s like to be a Dad with Alzheimer’s and a Daughter of a Dad with Alzheimer’s. Being today is World Alzheimer’s Day, here are our words, our perspectives, our truths.
My hope is that this brings an awareness, some clarity and raw honesty of how Alzheimer’s not only affects the individual with the disease but the family as a whole.  I also hope this shows that Living with Alzheimer’s is still “LIVING”, still “FEELING LOVE”, still being “ALIVE INSIDE!”
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Daughter of Dad with Alzheimer’s, from HER Perspective

Being the daughter of a parent living with Alzheimer’s is challenging, unpredictable, and the best way to learn patience. There comes a point where you find yourself, a child, not only wanting to help your parent with the disease…

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Believe me. I’m always right. About me.

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Another thought provoking post from George Rook.

georgerook51's avatargeorge rook

Believe me. I’m always right. About me.

I was listening this week to a radio programme about personalising health and social care for people…

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Reducing unnecessary hospital admissions…

Providing health care at home…

Treating people as capable of deciding how they wanted to live and deal with risks…

And I was electrified when I heard something that went like this:

“You’re always right about yourself. No one else can know how you feel, what you enjoy and fear, what makes life worthwhile. Everyone elseis always wrong.”

I may be meandering back to my theme of who knows best? Nothing about us without us, but I’ll pursue it a little further.

Professionals, i.e. people employed and hopefully trained to do specific jobs in health and care, are expected by us all to know stuff. We need to trust them with our lives and bodies.

Trouble is, these professionals have…

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Dementia: You Silly Man!

Mixed Dementia, Uncategorized

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Maureen woke at 2.30 this morning struggling with where to relieve herself.  Despite my extensive explanations, she couldn’t find anywhere that was suitable for her to pass water.  After half an hour I sought some sanity with a call to Single Point of Access, followed by a conversation with a colleague on the Konar Suite.  He reminded me of the film 50 First Dates where the subject started every day without any memories.  Then it suddenly dawned on me what a silly man I had been failing to understand that Maureen was telling me she didn’t know where she was.  The fact that she had been sleeping upstairs in our bedroom for a change would really have thrown her!

Whilst I was on the phone Maureen went back to sleep and woke a short while afterward wanting to reminisce about her childhood.  She told some familiar stories and shared experiences that I had never heard of before.  Her memories of her mum, working at the local Post Office and her dad at the Raliegh was vivid.  I’m hoping to cajole Maureen into making a start on Memory Book in the next few days.  This would have benefits both for Maureen’s memory and those who care for her.  A little more thought might help silly men who are awoken in the middle of the night!