Psych evaluation update

DoninNC

DW has been in the Behavioral Health unit for psych evaluation for 13 days now.  At first they had problems with wandering, aggressive behavior and being combative. She would wander into other patients room and once became combative with the staff, kicking and punching, as it took two of them to get her out of the room. Since then they have someone with her constantly. Getting her to sleep has been a problem and sometimes when they give her something to get her to sleep she'll sleep for about 15 minutes and then start to wander again which requires the staff to stay with her as she will stumble. 

The wandering has continued throughout her stay. The aggressive behavior has eased somewhat but on occasion she has refused to take her meds. Twice on Monday she urinated on the floor in her room. The last two days they say she has calmed down a bit but wandering continues and they are now dealing with hallucinations. 

I've taken the advantage of this time to have a consult with an elder care attorney, who gave me great advice planning for what's coming in the future. I've also met with our financial advisor to make some changes and again prepare for the future. Most of all I've taken the time to recharge and prepare for when DW hopefully comes home.

M1

Glad to hear the update Don.  Are you even close to getting a discharge date?  Are they suggesting memory care rather than home, and if so or if they do, how do you feel about that?

dayn2nite2

It would be a good idea to also utilize this time to tour (even virtually) some local facilities so you have a couple of them in your pocket should you be told that it would be next to impossible for one person to care for her in the home and they recommend overnight or even more care.

For anyone reading, whether you think you're at this point or not any emergency hospitalization may turn into a need for long-term care, so you should always (even if your LO is early stages) have one or two options for facilities in your head because you will not be given additional time to do research if discharge is imminent.

Ed1937

Don, it's good to hear that they have made at least some positive steps with her. Hopefully they will get her to the point where she can come home. 

And dayn2's suggestion about checking out facilities is a good point. I have not done that yet, but it's something I'll do after things open up a little more.

DoninNC

dayn2nite2 wrote:

It would be a good idea to also utilize this time to tour (even virtually) some local facilities so you have a couple of them in your pocket should you be told that it would be next to impossible for one person to care for her in the home and they recommend overnight or even more care.

For anyone reading, whether you think you're at this point or not any emergency hospitalization may turn into a need for long-term care, so you should always (even if your LO is early stages) have one or two options for facilities in your head because you will not be given additional time to do research if discharge is imminent.

That was also one of the suggestions from the elder care attorney and I have been online researching local facilities. I've found three that I would consider. The attorney did warn me that any aggressive behavior would get her blacklisted so it is imperative that her aggression is under control.