My mom is in a secured dementia facility, but her eye doctor wants to see her in his office. She has been clear she will run away if given half the chance due to her paranoid delusions. How do you handle this? My mom does not have memory issues and is focused on escape. The care home said they will transport the patient, but my fear is mom will play along until she gets done and refuse to go back. She likes the facility, the staff, the food, her room, her roommate, but her delusions are very strong that something bad is going to happen to her there. She had the same delusions at home and at the hospital. The doctor is highly sought after and top in his field. I very seriously doubt he will do a house call because he needs his large machines to check her eye health.
At some point we will outlive our eye health or not, and all the stuff they can do for us is almost without meaning. I don't know your Mom's age or overall eye health, but it would be unlikely she would be addressing wet AMD with injections into the eyes or doing cataracts? Am I correct?
When was the last time he saw her eyes and what specifically other than overall eye health is he worried about? Does she have complaints about her eyes?
What is the eye appointment for? MD? Cataracts? Glaucoma? It would be helpful to know this information.
If you get her to the eye appointment, will she be compliant with the instructions given to her and give accurate responses? If not, this may be wasting everyone's time. I remember when my Mom had cataract surgery in her early 90s. I helped her with the complicated eye drop regimen post-op. There's no way someone who isn't compliant will make it easy to do something like this. (Also, my Mom coughed during the procedure which caused a problem that we were thankfully able to fix but not without a lot of other appointments and another procedure).
Then second I will say that unless this eye appointment is a life or death situation, I would just leave well enough alone and cancel it.
Your profile says that your mom is 83 and has dementia(even though in your post you say that your mom "does not have memory issues")so you know that she will only get worse as her dementia worsens, and there will come a point where taking her to any appointments will be pretty much useless, as nothing will stop the inevitable.
I would just concentrate on keeping her as comfortable as possible(with whatever medications needed to help with her delusions)and let her enjoy and live out the rest of her days in a place that you yourself say that she likes.
If she has dementia, she has plenty of issues. She needs calming meds from her PCP before even considering this doctor appt. You already are concerned it could easily go bad, despite supervised transport to and from the eye doctor's office.
Does she have a serious eye condition requiring possible surgery, or is this a basic checkup for glasses? Is this eye doctor aware of her current dementia, paranoia, delusions, or her focus on escape?
It all sounds really bad, so I would cancel and let it go.
Doesn't matter how "great" this eye doctor is. What if she uses this chance to escape, or has a meltdown trying to escape? Not worth the worry!!
The set up at this particular MC was not well thought out and not secure enough for residents sly enough to outsmart others.
I don't care how this AL plans to get your mom to this eye doctor, it'd be a hard no for me. If she's wanting to run off badly enough, she WILL. Having dementia doesn't mean she doesn't have enough intelligence about her to run off if she's feeling paranoid. You need to speak to her doctor about calming meds to help her, too. Nobody should live in a constant state of fear. Ativan helped my mother a lot with her agitation and anxiety from advanced dementia.
Best of luck to you.
Honestly, I'd be surprised if the doctor woud do anything other than do another round of shots, and that means visits every few weeks. Is that something you'd want to risk? Also, if he hasn't seen her for a year, he has no idea whether her vision is worse or not. My mother never went a year between visits to her retinologist.
M’s wet macula may have got much worse in a year. You can do a ‘home test’ by getting her to look at something with a squares or a vertical line down it, covering one eye at a time. The wet macula causes the straight lines to have a bend or a wiggle in them. This will tell you which eye has the wet macula, how bad it is – and also if both eyes are affected. You can do it regularly to see if it’s getting worse – my husband does it looking at the calendar boxes, conveniently at eye level.
This is quite separate from cataract problems. If M has one ‘good’ eye, she should still be able to read. There are a lot of people who cope well with one functional eye.
My DH’s eye clinic doctor also says that his eyesight is not that bad and he would hate for it to worsen – that’s their job, and their challenge! You need to work out if it’s the worst challenge for M - that's your job.
Best wishes, and I hope this helps a bit. Yours, Margaret
Seems from your last post things have gone quickly since she now is in a facility. I can't see where you don't live close by. I will assume you can be there for her at the doctor's but even then I would pay to have some with you. Does the MC have a doctor associated with it? If so, I would see if he and the eye doctor can work together. Maybe the eye doctor could check on her every so often and if he feels she has a problem then transport her. My Opthamologist has Optometrists in his office who do the everyday care but if serious u see the Opthamologist.
Best wishes
do what you feel you truly need to do but don’t feel guilty if that is do nothing at all . We are on this journey with them 🙏🏻
You can meet her at the doctor’s office if you want to be there to hear what the doctor says.
For what it’s worth , there comes a time also when it’s not worth taking them out from a facility anymore .
Mom complains bitterly that her eyesight is getting much worse. I agree she cannot see far away well. However, she just colored a pretty picture this past week and she stayed in every line and it looked perfect. She also writes me notes that she can see to write, but says she cannot see to read. She stays on the lines and the words are well written.