My mother became ideal 4 1/2 years ago after my father died. He had in home 24/7 care for almost two years. Had hospice for nearly 2 years. My mother hated having aides in the house, although they did help her too. When he died she asked to live by herself, and she was quite successful for 4 1/2 years, with lots of help from four children spouses and grandkids. She became delightful pleasant and grateful. She recently fell broke her hip, and was in rehab 5 weeks with Tylenol only for pain. We were guided to not give her stronger medicine due to her dementia, which presents as mostly short term memory loss. We moved her to AL. Well she forgets she broke her hip, and her Tylenol rx never got to the AL. She was in extreme pain, and we got her Tramodol to help her. As it turns out it is her arthritic knee that is a major source of pain and she will get a cortisone shot. Her pain is going away, with the tramodol. Do we stop it in hopes that she will return to the pleasant person she was? Her new disposition resembles the woman that raised us. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I did not feel the pain was as bad the second hip but I did use narcotic, Vocodin in my case. Despite being geriatric with no history of dementia I tolerated everything just fine and now just take a couple of Tylenol for all my other aches and pains.
TNtechie's comfort care sounds the best solution, but it is very important with every patient to use just enough pain meds to keep them comfortable. The elderly seem to tend not to need as large dose as those younger but never let the pain get so bad that your loved one is in agony because it takes bigger doses to control pain that is out of control
Blessings.