My mom has been sliding downhill for years. A while ago we finally convinced her to go get tested at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center which is supposedly the best in our AZ area. According to her, the doctor asked her a few questions and determined that she was fine. (I've since learned that my grandmother had also gone to that "dementia specialist" only to be told she was fine as well. (3 months later my grandma didn't know who my grandpa was.)
More than a year later, my mother is finally (again) admitting that there is a problem. Her doctor gave her a medication that was supposed to help (slow?) the dementia. It made her sick and now she refuses to take it. She's looking to herbal MLM supplements to help her memory now. When my dad speaks to her frankly about the need to take it seriously and get real medication, she gets suicidal and refuses to see reason.
Is there anything out there that will help? Or should we just let her slip happily into senility? Any ideas what the doc would've put her on that made her throw up? Does the sickness decrease? Are their other meds? I remember seeing in the news that a new drug had been approved (the first) to treat the actual disease as opposed to the symptoms.
Why would a "reputable" neurological center be so incompetent in detecting dementia early?? Are there any online doctors that can treat my mother? She refuses to go back to the Ali Center, and I don't blame her.
Is it ethical to force my mother to get herself help? Are there provisions (such as with mental health crisis centers) where she can be manhandled into facing her issue while keeping her under suicide watch?
So stop trying to get her to face whatever.
“She refuses to see reason”. If she CAN’T “see reason”, or is terrified to “see reason”, that won’t work either.
She was seen by a neurologist? Might she do better with a gentle, quiet psychologist or psychiatrist specialist in geriatric diagnosis? If you can find one with good credentials that might be worth a try.
”Is it ethical to force my mother to get herself help?”
But what if she CAN’T “get herself help”? If she’s frightened already, losing her cognitive skills, hyper suspicious of family members whom she had recently loved and trusted, and unable to sort out her thoughts enough to come up with any plan but suicide, could she be forced into any situation that would help her and her family move forward to a solution?
”Speaking frankly” may be confusing and frightening her more than helping her.
My LO was seen in her very good Memory Care Unit, by a wonderful psychiatrist assistant who prescribed small doses of calming but also uplifting medication, and she did much better than previously. As this specialist gained LO’s confidence, she was able to diagnose her cognitive level and develop strategies to work around her tested shortcomings.
Brutal stuff. For us, diagnosis was a help. I think if I were you, I’d start there. I think it might also help you, as her family, to look at Memory Care facilities, just to know what’s out there.
Be good to each other. Everyone involved needs to cut themselves a break. Whatever you decide, with love and respect for her, will be the right decision.
What my mother hears and reality are two different stories, which is why I have to be with her whenever she sees a doctor, or, the doctor herself has to call me after she sees my mother for an appointment. It's vital. Otherwise, my mother's version of what happened & reality are two different things.
That said, my mother was diagnosed with progressive dementia in 2016 and was never given any medication to help her memory or to slow anything down. I believe she has vascular dementia, but there are lots of different types of dementia out there, so based on the type your mother has, that would determine the meds she was given. If she was given a med that made her nauseous, it should have been adjusted. Of course, trying to reason with a person suffering from dementia is impossible to begin with, so this is where the problems BEGIN. Trying to convince her of anything is normally a huge waste of time. They get ideas in their heads which you can't chop out of their with an axe, I often say. It's frustrating!
I can't imagine 'online doctors' would be helpful to your mother; what would they do? Again, I'm sure the doctors at the Ali Center DID diagnose her or at least give her a cognition exam to determine what was going on with her. Are you able to obtain those records yourself, if you have medical POA for your mother?
In my opinion, dementia progresses no matter WHAT steps are taken to slow it down or to 'treat' it. I'm not sure how you can 'force' your mother to get help, nor am I sure what help there IS to get, frankly. If she's truly suicidal, then the next time she threatens to take her own life, take it seriously, call 911, and have her taken to the ER for psychiatric evaluation. That's really all you CAN do. "Manhandling" a person who's suffering from dementia is never a good idea. As I said earlier, they are impossible to deal with on a good day b/c their power to reason is no longer present............so don't apply YOUR rules of logic to HER, you know? All bets are off now, and the best thing to do is keep her safe & let her be. My mother lives in a Memory Care Assisted Living place nearby with others who are in the same boat she's in. They do crafts and activities together, they eat meals and sit outside in the sunshine........watch movies, that's the life they lead. It is what it is, you know?
Wishing you the best of luck with a tough situation that many of us face with our loved ones who suffer from dementia.