My situation is getting confusing

Kiran

Hi,

My mom is 80 yrs old now and her dementia would be stage 5 progressing towards stage 6.

I had brought her back to her house from my brother's place in June and my journey since then has been horrible.

I have kept a caregiver too to take care of her needs. She was initially non cooperative and then later on in an indifferent mode...to the extent that we had to lift her up n take her to washroom. I felt she was sinking and hence requested my brother to visit her.

My brother came in the last 2 weeks of October and she seems to have bounced back to life. While it was a v good moment...but after he has left its just miserable. She wanders constantly between the hall to the bedroom. She had anyways reduced her speaking , now she speaks gibberish.

It's v difficult to manage her at home with a caregiver too. It's taken a huge toll on my health and I have no time for self care.

Plslet me know the following -

1 can dementia improve in patients? Can it come from stage 5 to stage 4?

2 how do I calm her down? She is running around the house like a toddler.

Thanks

SusanB-dil

Hi Kiran - welcome to 'here', but sorry for the reason.

Unfortunately, 'this' will not improve. Some days a PWD may go back and forth between stages… until they don't. That said, there are medications to calm down some. Is there a neurologist on your team? At the very least, her PCP may be able to prescribe something in the meantime.

Who has DPOA and HIPAA accesses? That is important.

Sometimes easier said than done, but you really do need to take care of yourself, even if just a little while per day.

Rule #1 - don't argue with a PWD. Rule #1 - MUST take care of self!! Rule #2. See Rule #1, both of them.

Emily 123

Yes, people can rally for brief periods of time- my guess would be that her usual behaviors would eventually show up once she adjusted to your brother being around. The caregivers get to see the unburnished truth, others may not.

Meds may help calm her- at least it might help tamp down some of the anxiety/confusion and reduce the wandering, so contact her provider and describe the behaviors you’re seeing. What you describe might be more of a 6. Read up on hospice & think about if it might be helpful now. It also wouldn’t hurt to perhaps consider placement or just see if you can find a place that could take her for at least a few weeks for some respite care for you.
https://tala.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tam-Cummings-LLC-Handouts.pdf

mabelgirl

I believe if we don’t care of ourselves, our own frustrations and stress are felt by the PWD. This only adds to their state. Please take care of yourself and I think you’ll find a solution that meets both yours and your mom needs.

Quilting brings calm

Sometimes an acceleration is symptoms can be helped if the acceleration is so to an infection of some sort. However they don’t usually get all the way back to where they were before the infection. Sometimes the acceleration is due to stress ( libe moving). That may be helped sone as time goes on.

In your case, the only real help is medication and eventually placement in a facility. Her behaviors will only get worse

Anonymousjpl123

I do think that having visits and attention and seeing the face of someone she remembered but hadn’t seen in some time probably helped her feel better. I have noticed that even though I visit my mom frequently, because I am mostly the only one visiting it isn’t as much as a lift to her mood. Very hard. I hope you can find some relief and a chance to get some rest each day. I know how stressful this can be.