They were going to send mom to the hospital alone!
My mother is late stage alzheimers, cannot communicate or understand anything that is done to her. She fell backwards and hit her head last night and they called wanting to send her to the hospital because there was a cut (thought might need a stitch)
Uh, NO! I told the RN to see if they could get a better look at it and try to fix it and she agreed with me about the fact that it would be very traumatic for mom. They cleaned it up and she is fine today- What I couldnt believe though is that they were going to call an ambulance and send her off with no one! omg she would have gone NUTs fighting and crazy- When she wasnt as sick as she is now the hospital ended up strapping her down and putting a net over her bed to keep her in and drugging her up...
What in the world happens when there is no family around at all?
At least I had the nads to say NO. she fought them , but at least they got a better look at it and cleaned it up and she was fine.
If it wasnt fine it would have been a hellish night...
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But failing one as good as that, would you not expect the ALF to send an escort if the resident has dementia?
And 'well caught' to you, of course.
Mincemeat, my Dad did something similar to what happened to your Dad. My Dad fell in his garage and broke his nose. Dad was also on coumadin. My Mom [in her mid 90's] was trying to help Dad stop the bleeding. By the time they called me, hours later, Dad still couldn't stop the bleeding. I called 911. Dad didn't want 911 as all it was was a bloody nose. He didn't understand how serious this could be. Well the paramedics took it seriously as Dad could have bled out plus had other injuries from that fall. Dad still had his sense of humor as he would tell anyone new "you should have seen the other guy, his memorial service will be next week".... [sigh]
The cardiologist at the hospital decided no more coumadin, as Dad was more of risk of falling and bleeding out, then he was to have another heart attack.
But my heart sank when I saw your headline, because I am just this week picking a fight with my local newspaper for its front page news story:
WE WATCHED NAN BLEED TO DEATH IN A&E
(A&E is ER, by the way - stands for Accident & Emergency)
Long (and extremely sad) story short: an elderly lady living with dementia in residential care fell in her bathroom. An unspecified time later she was taken to hospital by unspecified persons. Whether or not she was accompanied? Not specified. What medical history was taken? Doesn't say.
Four hours after she was booked in, during which time her relatives had arrived, she lost consciousness and was at long last seen by a physician. Too late. She died the next day, of an acute brain injury causing a bleed into her brain. The coroner at the inquest concluded, though, that even if she had been examined earlier it would have made no difference to the outcome - because there was no sign of head injury and nobody mentioned it, perhaps, or because there had already been a substantial delay in taking her to hospital - thanks to shocking reporting standards we will never know.
What we are told is that the family is very angry and upset, as well they might be. They are sure that if "Nan" had not waited four hours to be seen by the doctor she would still be with us today. And somebody, not very helpfully, has given them to understand that their grandmother "bled to death." Before their very eyes, yet.
The reason why I've picked a fight with the reporter is that her article does not ask
how Nan came to fall
what time she fell
what time she was taken to hospital
who went with her
who spoke to the Triage nurse.
So the article says nothing about how dangerous falls are, how vital it is to prevent them as far as possible, how even apparently minor head injuries need keeping a careful eye on, and how crucial it is that elderly people with dementia are NEVER sent unaccompanied to hospital.
Instead of that, the reporter created a lurid (and factually nonsensical) headline about the one thing the coroner found was NOT the cause of this poor lady's death - namely, the delay before she was examined and a CT scan ordered.
I've told the reporter she's missed a good opportunity to warn people about what really killed poor Mrs S., namely the fall, and she's done neither the family nor the public any service. She's gone very quiet for some reason!
She was a screaming crazed woman who almost got seriously injured trying to get out of the emergency room last time because it wasnt a 'closed' area. I really had to think about whether I would go there and expose myself to a situation that would have been worse for me than her in the long run of her forgetting it and me not.
When I spoke to them last night it turned out there was no blood and it cleaned up fine.
I spoke to them today and her injury was a non-issue...
thank you for telling me the two scenarios of going and not going. It was an eye-opener for me and now i know what to expect next time.
Head bumps in elderly can be quite serious, it is better to have the whole nine yards none then just putting a band-aid on the injury.
My Mom had no visual injury after a fall where she had bumped her head on the kitchen counter top, but x-rays showed she had a brain bleed and also found was a blood clot. Better safe than sorry.
The EMS workers and medical transport staff handle dementia patients all the time, so they are pretty good at it. Though, I've never seen anyone freak out. I'm not sure how that would work.
I know that there are many residents in the Memory Care where my cousin lives whose family's are from NY, NJ, etc. and are never available to meet them at the ER. I suppose they manage, since there is really no other option. Have you discussed options with the facility? Could you have someone from the facility accompany her to the ER, perhaps for a fee?
From there on, you have to trust that the doctors at the hosptial could handle her. She wouldn't be the first person who was in advanced alzheimers who fell and had a serious injury. They would calm her with meds and take the necessary scans etc....and of course as long as you are on the contact list they would have contacted you...but they definitely wouldn't not have been able to wait to call an ambulance because they couldn't get a hold of anyone. What if her head injury caused a blood clot? What if she had internal bleeding?? There are cases where she would go to the hospital alone, and you need to have faith that they would calm her down with meds.
Would she be upset? Yes. Would she fight them? Possibly. would she have a hard time with the move to the hospital and the stay there? Sure...but it's not something that can be avoided. You are very lucky that her head injury was minor...but playing devil's advocate I'd have wanted to have her seen...some injuries like brain hemorrhages cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Doctors are trained to deal with difficult patients. Please have faith and allow them to do what's best for her until you are able to arrive.
Angel