My Gran

NeverEnough

Just to add a little to the discussion about medication for dementia (I am medically qualified and have worked with dementia patients, both in diagnosis and prescribing, but please note none of this is intended to be personalised medical advice as such, each individual obviously needs assessment on an individual basis).

Basically, dementia can be caused by several conditions, Alzheimers is one, Vascular dementia (from years of badly controlled diabetes or blood pressure or poor lifestyle) is another, Parkinsons Disease and various other neurological disorders can also present with loss of cognitive ability and short term memory loss.

Memory impairment can also occur when people are very depressed or suffer from physical health problems, so the Memory Clinic need to be able to discern between these different presentations, which is why specialist doctors and nurses staff them. They take a detailed history, and also do a test called a Mini Mental State Examination which is a series of exercises designed totest declining short term memory. This is then scored. Sometimes brain scans are requested as well, to show shrinkage or other abnormalities, depending on the patients symptoms.

The tablets for dementia are actually for a small group only - they are intended for people with mild to moderate Alzheimers ONLY, not Vascular Dementia or any other cause, and not for advanced Alzheimers either. The tablets can slow the progress of the disease down and give a better quality of life to some patients. But the Alzheimers still relentlessly progresses.

The other types of dementia are sadly not treatable but need to be managed so the patient stays safe and independent as long as possible.

Obviously memory problems related to anxiety or depression can resolve on treatment and are not a dementia. Not all older folk get dementia - the Queen and Prince Philip both still pretty sharp, for instance.

OP- Your gran does not sound as if she has dementia, rather the motives of half-sister seem a bit unclear, and your GP sounds good too, so try to reassure your Gran and protect her from the wiles of the money-grubbing relative!! Hope all goes well with the memory clinic, I am sure it will,.

Blade26

Hi

Thanks for the posts and the support, it's much appreciated. We have an appointment at the memory clinic on 1 May so not too long until we get something definitive.

Her GP is fabulous, he's new to the practice but had worked in acute care with dementia patients so has some experience, although he did caveat that saying he is not an expert and those at the memory clinic are so if there is a problem they will find it. The GP at the last appointment did a mini memory test with her which she passed with almost flying colours; he docked her half a point as she had answered the question of when the 2nd World War was with the dates she was in the army which wen beyond 1945

Sister has announced that she has got a fella, gran said to me that hopefully she will leave her alone now she has something else to occupy her.......we shall see.

Anyway. I'll be back after the memory clinic if not before.

Many thanks again, you are all wonderful :T

blade26

NAR

Blade26 wrote: »

Sister has announced that she has got a fella, gran said to me that hopefully she will leave her alone now she has something else to occupy her.......we shall see.

Thanks for the update Rachel. All sounds positive so far and I think you can look forward to 1st May for confirmation. :T

The quoted bit is probably the best part of the update, sister has somewhere else to channel her energies!

Blade26

Hi guys

We have been to the memory clinic today, and whilst the nurse was very positive my Gran did admit to some short term memory issues, and so she has been referred to the Consultant who we should see in 6 weeks or less.

From the perspective of the testing on bot occasions with my sister and Dad separately she scored 26/30, today she scored 23/30 so slightly less;-further test conducted previously resulted in 8/20 with sister and 12/20 with Dad; today this was 7/20.

I asked the nurse whether my dads answers to the questions last time influenced the outcome at all, as this is what my sister believes, I was reassured that this is not the case and reported this back along with all the above to my sister, her response, see I told you I was right. I was fuming, by the time she had worn herself out congratulating herself on her medical diagnosis (!) I pointed out that the referral again didn't mean that she had dementia; it just meant she was seeing someone win far more experience.

Anyhow, me and Gran had a fab day out, we went for a real nice lunch at a tea rooms and she had the biggest piece of cake ever, I couldn't finish mine, she took the pattern off her plate We had a chat about POA, and we said we will sit down with my Dad and sort it all and add me to the POA already in place for finances and sort out a POA for health; Dad seemed happy about this as he is a bit of an ostrich and was in denial when my Mum was really poorly after he operation she had which she eventually died from following complications. We also said we would make an appointment with the bank to get online access to her bank account so that I can start paying her bills for her, bit of a compromise on the direct debit which she is adamant that she won't have.

Thanks for all the support, hopefully be back when I have more to report

blade26

NAR

More good progress by the sound of things; and you got lovely cake!

fredsnail

Well done you - your Gran is very lucky to have a grand daughter like you to help her out.

The cake sounds great too :T

Spendless

Hi Blade,

My grandmother was sectioned under the MH act last year and my Mum was told she had dementia. Until she started doing very 'bizarre' stuff, we hadn't realised. Now we look back and realise that lots of things were staring us in the face and we didn't 'see' them.

Nan was in hospital several weeks before being discharged. She is on medication, and I was intrigued to see the response about how you can't medicate for vascular dementia as that is what my Nan's GP has told my Mum she has. I suspect Nan must be being given medication for paranoia.

Some of the things Nan says are totally believable eg when i called tonight, she'd started telling my Mum about how my 10yo had called round the other day. It's not true as though we live in the same village, nan's house is further away than she's allowed to walk to and I wouldn't let her anyway as we never know if Nan is on a good or bad day. Some things you know straight away aren't true, like the other week when she told me journalists were interviewing in her back bedroom about Margaret Thatcher's death and broadcasting on tv! Back before the hospital stay though, the things she said were just on believable scale, which is why we never queried anything, it's only now when we've checked stories with other family members that we know this has been several years coming.

Things seem to be further complicated in your case as you don't know whether your sister is telling the truth or not. Could you start with something 'concrete'? Eg ask your sister why she believes that your Grandmother withdrew a large amount of money out of the bank when she took her. If she answers I saw the money or I went with her to the cashier then you know that's incorrect. If she says your Grandmother told her so, after she waited for her to come back then it's a possibilty that your Grandmother has confused herself (though that doesn't ness mean dementia). I'd also query what your sister defines as 'a large amount of money'. It may purely be that it's the same thing, just seen from diff points of view.

Blade26

Hi guys

My Gran and I have today been back to the memory clinic for a consultant appointment with a psychiatrist. The great news is that my Gran has been discharged as the psychiatrist said that her memory issues may be on the borderline of age related versus dementia, but in the absence of any issues regarding her functioning on a day to day basis she wasn't happy to keep her on the list.

Gran is still v active and able, she shops, cooks, cleans etc for herself and manages to go to our local town on her own on public transport etc; the psychiatrist said that as long as she is managing to do all of this in a safe manner the is no real reason to be concerned. The only thing she has suggested we look at is to get the gas fire removed just incase, as it is Gran struggles to bend down to turn it on so there's no big loss there.

So I ring my sister, the one who started all this, and her response was I don't know how she managed to convince them that she was OK, I was fuming, so now we have had a GP, nurse and a consultant psychiatrist saying that they are unable to give a diagnosis of dementia, and still she isn't happy. Well b**ls to her, my other sisters and my Dad are happy to continue to support Gran as we have been doing and Dad and I have been talking to Gran today about some small changes that could make her life easier, which she has been receptive to.

She wants to go to Scotland to see her sister over the summer, so my hubby and I are going to take her up there so she can stay for a few weeks, she is ver excited at the prospect, I just love seeing her happy!

Sister showed her hand a bit a couple of weeks ago, when talking about my Dad; our Mum died a couple of years ago and she started to talk about her inheritance from Mum. One of my other sisters pointed out that Dad got everything and it was up to him how he split anything in his will, she seems to think that this is unfair. She then talked about our Gran, well my Gran as she is her step-Gran and said that she can understand that the bungalow (that Gran lives in) will stay in the family, but she hoped that Gran treated us all the same. I said I found the whole talking about inheritance from those who were still alive really distasteful and upsetting and didn't want to hear anything more about it. Most of the time I love her, but when she bangs on like that I wonder if we even share 50% of our genes as her outlook on life is so skewed from that of me and my sisters.

Thanks again for the support

blade26

Errata

Very good to read everything's turned out for your gran as you expected it to.
I hope you can ignore your sister's comments by simply not responding to them, she sounds like she's just another version of an ambulance chaser.

chesky

Yes, the best thing to do is to sinply ignore what your half sister says. Do not react at all, simply change the subject. Don't give her the satisfaction of upsetting you - simply smile and talk about your holidays, the weather, the state of the world, anything but your gran and your dad's will.