My Dad fell and broke his hip last week. We decided on surgery since he was a good candidate. We had to take him off hospice care for the surgery as the broken hip was considered a result of his dementia, which is his hospice-admitting diagnosis. Dad ended up getting a new ball and socket in his hip, as part of the hip bone had broken off rather than the hip sustaining a fracture. He was released from the hospital yesterday and re-admitted to hospice care (God Bless the folks who are part of hospice, they spent their entire Sunday afternoon getting this done!). His first day back was spent sleeping, which left us quite worried, but today he was awake, ate well and told us he needed to stand up! (The hospital staff only ever got him moved between the bed and a chair a couple of times, never had him walking, which I thought they had to do before releasing a patient?). Tomorrow one of the aides is going to get him up and into a chair and they'll begin some light therapy (we opted out of sending him to a rehab place because we didn't feel he'd get any better "therapy" than he does at his nursing home and with his cognitive problems a rehab place wouldn't have kept him around long!). We are very optimistic about Daddy's chances at a good recovery. Has anyone else (probably a stupid question!) gone through this experience, and if so, how did your loved one cope?
I am optimistic about your daddy's chances at a good recovery if he does as well as my father in law. Yours having had surgery to repair the break makes me even more optimistic. All the best to you and your dad.
I'm curious as to why my post didn't end up in the Alzheimer's & Dementia category as I selected and where I normally post. Oh well . . .
Any kind of proceedure on the elderly takes a lot longer to recover from even without the complication of dementia.
Depending on her general health before the surgery the Drs could consider some form of supplemental feeding or at least rehydration to see if that jump starts her recovery. I would not consider that as a long term treatment because if she is actually begining her journey to the next life it will only add to her suffering. I think you are at the time when you can only prepare for the worst and hope for the best. As long as she is pain free, not distressed and has loving family at her side that is really the best you can do right now.
It is a very worrying and difficult time and no one wants to loose a loved one but it is very important for you to take care of yourself and if you can't eat at least use nourishing drinks.
Most of my LO's fractures did not require surgery and I'm glad, because she was not a good candidate. I have known a couple of people who had dementia, who had surgery and none of them did well. They actually were not able to survive for long. I'm not sure why, except they seemed to just go downhill physically, after the surgery.
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