possibly transitioning to next stage?

pookabera

Hi friends,

It feels late at night even though it's 7:30PM here. Wanted to check-in about the kookiness we've had going on today.

Some catch-up from the last couple of weeks: my dad might be starting to struggle with eating/using his hands. More confusion about how to do things (take pills, drink from straw). As he's bedridden and not interested in doing anything, those are really the only ADLs he's doing. He's sleeping quite a bit and has lost weight again; his dentures are bothering him again and I hear that they're not fitting correctly when he talks sometimes. His legs are stiff and hard for him to move. He still remembers who my mom and I are and will ask about us to whichever one of us in the room with him.

My Mom called me this morning and said that he was more off-the-rails than usual. I've been here since about 5PM and can confirm that he is "crazier" than usual. He's been awake and watched at least three movies, this is super unusual. Lately he hasn't been interested in watching anything at all. He's been waking up to eat and then going back to sleep with no TV. So, that's already unusual.

She went to check on him at some point and he was scooted to the end of his bed (also unusual and makes us nervous because we don't want him falling out of bed or trying to stand up).

He is truly making no sense. He's way more talkative than he has been in a couple months but very little of it is lucid. We think he's having hallucinations based on the things he's saying.

I'm thinking I might want to call his hospice team just to check in and update them?

We're surprised by his "energy". Is this sort of thing normal? We really didn't expect there to be any more rallying from him at this point.

I did test his urine with a home-UTI test and he's got slight leukocytes presence, but I wasn't able to look at it by the recommended amount of time because we had a false alarm poop scare (he sat on a chocolate bar haha)

So, ANYWAY... do I ever know what's going on? No... But I especially don't know what's going on today.

Note: Did not proofread this, apologizing in advance ;-)

M1

i think there is a phenomenon known as terminal restlessness, this could be what he's experiencing. I'd certainly ask the hospice folks about that.

trottingalong

I would give him another test for UTI.

pookabera

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/200056#Comment_200056

I will! Thank you!

pookabera

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/200069#Comment_200069

Tested his urine again today a little bit ago and both leukocytes and nitrites were negative again. Doesn't mean there's not something going on. :-/ I'll let hospice know when I call to update them tomorrow.

JeriLynn66

I’d request a visit from Hospice if one isn’t already scheduled before the weekend

pookabera

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/200056#Comment_200056

So I read up on this a little bit, and it's interesting.. I suspect that with how agitated he tends to be, this will probably continue to pop up every now and then. Thanks for the suggestion!