Severe mistrust of doctors

noel18

I have about 1000 questions/concerns running through my mind since moving in with my grandmother (who has dementia) this week, but after reading many posts here, I feel like our #1 priority is getting her to a doctor for an eval. The problem is, she thinks the doctors/being in the hospital 3 years ago was what caused her memory loss. She fell on the ice and fractured her hip and was in the hospital and in a lot of pain for a while, and it coincided with her onset of serious dementia symptoms. She has refused to go since then, multiple times a day stating that her brain doesn't work since she went to the hospital and the doctors did something to her brain. She also struggles with depression/anxiety and did before her diagnosis for years. The past couple of months, she's spent a lot of time saying she wants to die and she's sick and to let her die. This week my grandpa (her spouse of 60+ years) passed away. Now she's beside herself with depression, confusion, and frustration and just wants to die. It's hard now to differentiate between normal grief, pre-existing depression, and her disease. Regardless, I desperately want a doctor to evaluate her. I don't know how I or my mom would be able to get her there. I'm afraid of her anger outbursts and her mistrusting me if I take her, but I'm more afraid of how things will progress without a doctor visit/guidance. Am I just stuck being the bad guy and have to live with that for a while with her? Does anyone have any advice on how they've handled LO's fear/mistrust of the doctor? Thank you in advance

quartlow2

My Mom mistrusted doctors too; except the ones who sent flyers saying they had a cure for Dementia\Alzheimer's - those are "real" doctors, you know! (sarcasm) We talked her into going to a Neurologist to get an MRI. He told her it showed some damage but they can't tell if was caused by normal aging or a stroke. He said there is a medication that she could try that has worked well for slowing the progress of Alzheimer's. She was able to do some online research at the time and decided it wasn't for her. She was looking for a cure, not just slowing it down. From then on we warned doctors not to mention "dementia" to her or she'd immediately distrust them. We saw it happen over and over again.

This may not be the case in your LO but if I had to do it over again, I'd not push for a diagnosis. Or I'd make something up about why we were seeing that Dr and then talk about results without her in the room. If a med was prescribed I'd tell loving fibs. Mom would admit when she was anxious. There are anxiety meds for dementia patients. But, like anything, everyone reacts differently according to their chemical makeup. The first med they tried made her anxiety increase. I hate the whole experimental aspect of medical treatments; especially with people who can't express themselves!

My heart goes out to you. Only prayer gets me through the day. I pray that God will tell me what I need to know when I need to know it and what to say when I need to say it. I've never tried harder, daily, to do the things that help me to hear His voice!

ElleSS

I have the same issue with my dad.  He’s currently on a hold in a psych hospital dementia unit but is being discharged to assisted living memory care Friday.  To take him to doc appts I’m basically going to have to either pay to have the assisted living memory care transport him and I’ll meet them there or I put him in my back seat with child locks on because he’s tried to jump out of my car while I’ve been driving in the past.  He’s totally non compliant with his meds too- my tact on getting him to appts has been to just explain/lie these are appts for us to see how to ensure he can stay home or resolve other issues he is obsessing over.  Now that he’s going to assisted living the lie will have to revolve around seeing if he can go home- which is not ever going to be able to happen.  I have discussions with the docs he’s seeing ahead of time so they understand the charade.

noel18

Thank you so much for sharing that! It really helps