I have posted several questions about this and now I have another question. My mom, 69 with MS almost died this past week due to a medication screw up. On the four day of her not eating and she was unable to swallow or talk, I contacted hospice and they said they would sign her up the next day. The day after I contacted them, my mom started getting better and started eating and drinking a little. Hospice didn't contact me again until today. Today my mom is able to eat and drink. But she is bedridden now and very depressed. The nurse told me today that my mom said several times that she wishes she was dead. She was ready to die and I think she is disappointed to still be alive. Hospice talked to my moms PN who gave her the all clear to be signed up for hospice today. But now that she is eating and drinking I don't feel she needs it... but should I still sign her up? I really don't want my mom to go, but if she is ready I need to respect her wishes. Is hospice something that will help her pass away? :( i can clarify wherever I don't make sense so please ask any questions. It's been a long week.
My mother was in a nursing home and on hospice. She got additional attention, a comfortable geri-chair, an upgrade to her bed, and someone who could make medication decisions quickly. After several months she was discharged from hospice because she had gained weight and was judged to have a life expectancy of more than 6 months. She lived another 2 years.
Hospice does not "help someone pass away" in the sense that they speed it up. Not at all. They just make the natural processes that are taking place more comfortable for her and more understandable for you. If Mom's body is not ready to die, they will not make it happen (even if your mom wants that).
My husband was on hospice in our home for 5 weeks before his death. Both my mother and my husband continued to eat and drink while on hospice. This is mostly determined by the disease process.
Since your mother has been accepted into the hospice program, I don't see any downside. If your mother's condition improves now that she is eating and drinking, she will be discharged from the program.
This is where the mistake lays. There are bad withdrawals from this med. This gave my mom extreme pain, possible hallucinations as well as her being unable to use the call light during any of this. I came into the nursing home to find my mom having extreme muscle spasms yelling "help me help me" and unable to say anything else due to being in such bad pain. She fortunately doesn't remember any of it but her screaming as the paramedics took her away to the ER is too fresh in my mind. This is a very mentally competent woman I'm talking about: it made her go crazy. The ER ran tests and gave her Valium which slowly calmed her down then sent her back to the nursing home. Where she was too lethargic to eat for a few days as well as in lots of pain. The back of her head and neck was the worst pain, I think it was from being crippled over during her spasms as well as fighting the ER nurses (again that is just not her). I can try to answer any more questions about it.
Aaand - well here's the rub - baclofen does not work for ALL kinds of muscle spasms. It just doesn't do much unless you have spasms from spnal cord or brain problems...or a very rare muscle disease or two... and it does help hiccups. We use lots of it in my peds rehab practice and side effects are an issue, but you just have to deal with it intelligently and not suddenly withdraw from high doses which notoriously causes itching, spasms, halluicnations, etc. If it is intrathecal baclofen sudden dysfunction of the pump that withdrawal can even be fatal.
Some idea of what caused the spasms in the first place - checking electrolytes, calcium magnesium, and vitamin D levels at a minimum - would really help guide treatment a lot better. So sorry this was mishandled so badly. I normally do not just jump in and say something was bad without a lot of details, but I can't see how this wasn't just completely wrong. All that said, with decent management she ought to recover from it.
20 x 4 = 80 mg a day is the top recommended dose - going higher can be done in young spinal cord patients who tolerate it - but an elderly person with poorer kidney function would have a HARD time metabolizing that much. Big sigh and hoe things keep looking up.