PWD and Insulin Pump for Type I Diabetes

Teachertee

Hi everyone,

Very concerned about my mom with dementia and Alzheimer's.  She has Type 1 Diabetes and is on an insulin pump.  She's got a Dex Com 6 sensor with it (a gadget that sets off an alarm if her blood sugar goes high or low).  

She's been uncontrollable with her eating lately and her blood sugar has been all over the place. She ignores the alerts and was vomiting on Christmas Day.

We are unsure of whether she mixed up her insulin dosage or her medications.  At her last endocrinologist appointment in the Fall, my father (her primary caregiver and cognitively sharp) expressed our concerns about her abilities to manage her pump and diabetes.

They looked over her data downloaded from the pump for previous weeks and stated that no changes will be made.

Anyone else have a loved one with diabetes? Wondering if I should try to contact the endocrinologist by an email or call to express our concerns? I do not have POA for her medically but could still contact him-even though he probably cannot get back to me due to confidentiality purposes. 

Thanks for listening!

M1

Definitely contact the endocrinologist, maybe the primary care doc too. Do you have a good handle on your mother’s stage of dementia?  The endocrinologist needs that information for sure.What about your dad, can he handle the pump and the monitor?  Is he capable of supervising/controlling her food intake? Type 1 diabetes is very difficult to handle in someone cognitively intact. So sorry, got to be terribly difficult.

Teachertee

My father (her primary caregiver) could be capable of inputing her daily calculations but it seems like she will really fight him on this, as she was a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator.  She used to train people on the pumps and how to manage their diabetes...which she brings up often and so does my father (as if he's in disbelief of her losing her ability to manage it).

He is overwhelmed with everything and trying to remain transparent, allowing her to sit in on every conversation with every doctor and putting us on speaker phone because of her paranoia about people talking about her.  My sister and I live in our own homes and both work full time so we are not able to monitor it or administer injections if the pump is removed.

dayn2nite2

If the pump requires her to calculate/take action based on calculations, then they have probably come to the end of the ability to maintain a pump and need to move to an alternate method.