Tag Archives: Good Practise

Dementia: It’s Another ‘No-Brainer’

Mixed Dementia

Image result for Kelsang Dorde Picture

There is little doubt that Maureen’s dementia is progressing and the demands on me are increasings.  It is possible there is also a dip in her condition at the moment due to infection: that should be clarified this afternoon at an appointment with her G P.  My priority this morning is to set up rolling respite so that I continue to have the energy to meet Maureen’s needs.  Home-based care is the only option to make sure Maureen is safe and well cared for: I don’t need phone calls telling me the police have found her or seeing her bruised and battered again!   I’m still waiting for details of the action that has been taken against the Care Homes that failed to keep Maureen safe during periods of respite care;.

What I have in mind is to establish a day off every week.  From next week I hope to build around a Wednesday night carer sit so I can have a 24-hour break from my caring role.  The Madhyamaka Buddhist Meditation Centre is little more than an hour’s drive away so my refuge for respite is a ‘no- brainer’ as Kelsang Dorde [pictured above] would say.

We have a busy week ahead with something happening on most days including my 71st birthday on Thursday.  I let an important one pass without any celebrations last year and more of the same is in order in a few days time.  What is the point of causing further distress to someone who no longer has any concept of time, person or place?  As my dear friend, Dorde would say: ‘it’s a no brainer’.

Maureen has been searching for the missing boy again this morning.  Yesterday. she was concerned that her granddaughter had nothing to play with so she put some toys beside her photograph.  She often waves to this little girl, now in her late teens, as she looks out on us from an occasional table in our lounge.

Dementia: Biting My Tongue

Mixed Dementia, ,

Image result for biting my tongue picturesI’m getting better at not responding to Maureen when she is being downright objectionable.  Last night was a classic: I’d been doing my best to help calm her sore throat and mouth and she challenged me when I woke after a nap with ‘what are you creeping around for’.  I wanted to say remember me I’m the guy who brought you ice cream a couple of hours ago to try to reduce the pain in your mouth but I decided to say little and let sleeping dogs lie.  This meant leaving all our plans for the evening on hold apart from Maureen’s version of crosswords.

Maureen woke me shortly after midnight to warn me there were insects in the room.  She was afraid to put her foot to the floor for fear of being bitten.  It took me a while to wipe the sleep from my eyes and find a way through her concerns.  Eventually, I persuaded her that we would be safer upstairs in our bedroom where I was sure we would not be troubled by insects.  I slept fitfully after this event and got up very early to carry out some household tasks alongside thinking about how to make our lives simpler.

At 6.30 YouTube is on with the old favourites bringing a smile to Maureen’s face. I’m optimistic that we will be watching a film on Enid Blyton tonight.  I guess there are not many people watching The Famous Five rather than East Enders these days but reminiscing leads in all sorts of directions.

If Maureen continues to struggle with a sore mouth further medical advice is needed.   I’m beginning to think that a swab is needed to establish the nature of her infection. The soreness in her mouth and lips is a chronic problem that causes considerable distress and visual inspection by the G P doesn’t seem to get her anywhere.  Unfortunately, there would be little point in asking him to address her caustic comments:  we already know that dementia takes no prisoners and those close at hand frequently bear the brunt of her frustration.  The only remedy for this aspect of dementia is for me to bite my tongue and keep my mouth shut!

 

 

Dementia: Every Day Is Special

Mixed Dementia

We will have our usual Valentine’s Day.

The two numbers that follow sum up our feelings on ‘Special Days’:

We show our love for each other every single day. 

Dementia: Complimentary Therapy

Mixed Dementia

A couple of hours into another early morning YouTube Party I suddenly thought of an approach to dementia that might be useful: a sort of 2 for 1 deal; music and learning a language.  If we listen to Bocelli with Italian lyrics on the screen then the brain is being stimulated in two ways.

Maureen has always been a better linguist than me so I have a resident tutor on hand.

Addio, amico mio: its ‘Time To Say Goodbye’:

 

Dementia: Compassion and Fear

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On Wednesday I received the sad news that a neighbour had passed away.  I delayed telling Maureen the news until the next day, as I feared it would cause a certain amount of distress.  Once again I was wrong as Maureen remembered with fondness an elderly lady across the road who had scolded her for being out by herself.  She still tells the story of an 86 year old woman with dementia, running down the road to bring her back home to me.  Later in the day, she showed great compassion to the grandson of the deceased when I invited him to our house to share our sadness over his loss.

Image result for Compassion and Fear Picture

During the afternoon Maureen was again in a compassionate mode as she tried to console me over the pain I was experiencing in my legs.  Once I shared the news that a medical opinion was needed, to seek advice over my restricted movement in both legs, her concern was palpable.  Unfortunately, she got the wrong end of the stick and it took me a while to understand how her compassion turned to fear.  It was only when she shared that perhaps she would need someone to come and stay with her that I grasped the significance of her concern.

I think Maureen believed that a stay in hospital would follow my visit to seek physiotherapy treatment this morning.  She shared that she had mistakenly been thinking that her deceased daughter would come up and stay with her in my absence.  Her thoughts are quite understandable as I will be returning to the hospital where I had both hips replaced.

Maureen is in a state of panic this morning with the prospect of my early morning visit to the hospital looming.  Her initial concerns have been about us being on time.  Now she is worried that she doesn’t know what to wear; alongside a thought: ‘if she doesn’t know how to dress they won’t let her go home’.  It’s clearly one of those occasions when I should have said nothing and gone for my hospital appointment alone!

I realise that most of the time I’m guessing how Maureen might be seeing things.  I must confess I have no idea why a publication that the Care Coordinator left for her consideration was first placed behind the sofa and then wrapped in a fleece.  My guess is because it was from the Alzheimer’s Society but I will never know.  What I do know is that Maureen is still a compassionate woman who is often frightened by her reality and attempting to minimise her distress remains my priority: not causing it – as I have clearly done at the moment!

 

Dementia: No Room At The Inn

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Image result for no room at the inn pictures

We had a stroke of luck on Friday morning when there was no room at the Inn.  A nearby Care Home determined that they would be unable to take Maureen for Day Care or Respite as they felt they were unable to meet her needs.  ‘Houdini’ (AKA Maureen) had already escaped from them once and also found her way into an unsupervised area of the building on another occasion. The Care Home concerned already had three escapologists in permanent care and they decided that taking another one would stretch them beyond safe limits.

The Inn being full turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Girl Friday Night played a blinder and opened up a new range of possibilities for care in the home.  The restful night that followed led to a lovely day where Maureen could only be described as AMAZING:  I hope my cyber friend Susan Macaulay won’t mind me borrowing her nickname!

Our first call in the morning was  Freeman Street Market where Maureen played a significant part in our choice of provisions.

When we moved on to Aldi she looked around for things that we really needed to compliment meals for the forthcoming week.

Later in the morning, she reminded me that we had forgotten to replace her toothbrush so we visited our local pharmacy to make the necessary purchase.

Throughout the morning we experienced Caring Cleethorpes at its best:

  • Stall holders at the Market know Maureen and go more than the extra mile to support her.
  • Staff in Aldi soon warmed to someone who takes a little longer at the till than most customers.
  • Our friends at Lloyds Pharmacy were exceptional as always.
  • Then the icing on the cake when  Girl Saturday arrived and picked up on Maureen’s high spirits to play her part in a lovely morning.

How fortunate that there was no room at the Inn and Maureen escaped ‘being put on a train again’ as she described her last visit to the Care Home concerned.  The Inn also let me off the hook as I had promised Maureen that we stand together in this: no more single tickets for our journey!

 

 

Dementia: A Star Appears

General,

Image result for A Star Appears PictureI know it’s a little late for this analogy but a star has appeared in our sky of carer support. Girl Friday Night arrived at 10 pm she will be going home at 7 am.  Maureen and I have the sleep that you can only dream of when you are exhausted.  You move quickly in these situations and I will be seeking for our newbie to be a regular Girl Wednesday Night and  Girl Friday Night every other week -she’s up for it.

Once again I have to praise our social worker for the speed of his action in adding Girl Friday Night to our Team.  He had the newbie available as soon as he called here yesterday afternoon.  Maureen really likes our Key Worker and was keen to show him that she had been sleeping in a drawer in the bedroom for the last few nights. On his advice, we managed to get one of our by one of our GP’s to rule out infection as a cause of her confusion and distress.

Refreshed from a good night’s rest we hope to be in Freeman Street Market early doors.  We both have a new found energy in our step this morning after what feels like a life-saving rest but I know that with dementia one swallow never makes a Spring!

 

Vascular Dementia:’There’s No Tablet For It’

General

Image result for Vascular dementia treatment Picture

Maureen’s first meeting with her Care Coordinator on Monday went well.  Our visitor played it carefully in the opening exchanges when she informed Maureen that ‘there was no tablet that could solve her memory problems’.  This was music to Maureen’s ears as she has a well-founded antipathy towards medication.

One of the interesting issues from the Care Coordinator’s visit is how much Maureen has retained of the lifestyle advice that she was given: the literature that she was left to peruse remains undisturbed on the coffee table  She made no mention of the discussions that took place until early this morning when she said ‘that woman is trying to turn me into a socialite’.  I hope I managed to turn her comment into something productive by suggesting we kept a daily record of our exploits so we could show others what we have been up to – she seems keen on this idea.Image result for bambi pictures

Maureen is a bit like Bambi this morning: ‘kinda wobbly’.  She was too frightened earlier on to go to the bathroom without assistance and she seems rather unsteady on her feet.  I hope that we are able to have what I often call an ‘easy day’; pottering around the house doing what any couple of our age might do when one of them feels out of sorts.

 

 

Dementia: Distraction and Redirection in Action

General

I had to pull out all the stops yesterday to try to ‘settle’ Maureen, as they say.  She struggled in the morning when Girl Wednesday was here and I had to lock down for a while to keep her within the four walls of our home.  During the evening, her restlessness continued so I decided to try a little musical distraction and redirection, by attempting to play my ukelele.  Once again YouTube came to my rescue with an introductory lesson that included singing this song from Bob Marley:

We both love reggae; are fans of Bob Marley and were familiar with this song.  In many ways, it epitomized what had been happened earlier in the day with the cancellation of the Best Interest Meeting.   It would be wrong to share too much detail here but Maureen’s right to have an Independent Advocate is now being processed.  The suggestion that I might fulfill that role in addition to being her husband and Care Partner, smacks of overload.  However,  I’m optimistic that a pragmatic approach to discussing Maureen’s welfare might develop in the next few days that could result in the  BIM becoming redundant.

Returning to the theme of distraction and redirection, I pulled another rabbit out of the hat, last night, when Maureen was on a comfort break.   I found an Introductory French Lesson on YouTube and exchanged simple phrases on her return.  Maureen has always been a good linguist and her French is far better than mine but she was kind about any mispronunciation

Towards the end of the evening we moved onto Maureen’s favourite musical and sang this one, along with many others, together:

There’s only one way to describe how things are this morning: comme ci, comme ça as Maureen has woken a short while ago wanting her mum.  I have asked if she would like to go to Nottingham today, to see her family but she is ‘too tired to travel anywhere’ and has returned to sleeping on the sofa.

Dementia: Frank and Meaningful Talks

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Image result for Frank and Meaningful discussions picture

Our Best Interest Discussion went well yesterday and I’m going to request that the meeting is reconvened today to explore some further thinking on my behalf.