Vascular Dementia (VD)

Oaks

My dear almost 91 year old Mother was diagnosed 12/31/20.  I am her primary caregiver and because I hear, see & feel her condition worsening over time I am becoming increasingly frustrated & angry.

Many times over the past 6 months I am up 2-3 times during the night to assure she safely gets back to bed.  My Mother is very stubborn & I am constantly getting her cane & walker because it is seldom that she takes the initiative to use them to navigate safely.  Both of my sisters live in Nebraska & during a recent visit by a sister my Mother fell walking around in a dark living room.  I followed up with her primary care doctor 6/13 & said I don't want to put my Mother in a nursing home yet she is a walking time bomb & after almost 18 months I can not & do not want to do this anymore.  On 6/9 the fall resulted in my Mother fracturing 3 ribs & also suffering a broken vertebrae bone in the lumbar area.  We will have a reassessment with her doctor 7/27.

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated and I sincerely thank you.

Steve

  

Space within

Hello Steve.

Does your family have the means to bring in in home, visiting care workers?  Caring for your Mom all on your own is a difficult task.  Any family ot close friends who could help out to give you a break. As a caregiver it is so important to take care of oneself.

   

I feel for you and am sending love and strength,  

BlackCat1

Hi Steve,

Welcome to the club nobody wants to be in.  My family could have written your post 4 years ago.  No one wants to place their LO.  Things got a lot worse for us before we placed our LO. We dealt with nonstop emergencies and our LO's stubbornness relegated us to the role of "Emergency Manager" until a serious medical event rendered our LO unable to walk, and incontinent.  I am sorry that you are going through this.  Some of the things we have been dealing with this year are seizures, strokes, incontinence, contractures, terminal restlessness, garrulity, constant UTI's.  Although our LO is on hospice and has been on it almost a year I do not believe that she is a ticking time bomb.  This can be a devastatingly long disease.