Hello all,
I hope this is the right place to post this, apologies if not. This is my first post. Just after some advice or to talk to anyone who has a similar situation/experience.
My Father in Law has had PD for 15 years now, he is 75. He was doing well until a fall 3 years ago, which resulted in him being hospitalised for several months. He had a hip replacement then a week later an operation on his urinary tract and didn't react well to the two lots of anaesthetic - he was bedridden, lost all memories and didn't recognise anyone. |It was strongly advised by the care team that he not return home but move into a nursing home. They diagnosed him at this point with end-stage PD.
Once he moved into the nursing home he improved a lot. His memories returned, he knew who people were, he was eating again but was having hallucinations. At the time he was on Apomorphine, it was decided it wasn't being very affective so it was replaced with a Rotigotine patch. The hallucinations mostly went away.
Last October he was moved into another nursing facility to be with his wife, she had been struggling with Alzheimer's herself for the previous 2 years and his current home didn't accept Alzheimer's patients. The new facility is fantastic. Small "households" of 12 residents with 3 or 4 staff to look after them, lots of stuff on site.
A week after they moved in (they have rooms next door to each other), my FiL took very ill with a chest infection. By now he is wheelchair bound, unable to clean himself but can just about feed himself once his food has been cut up, he can't dress or wash himself and requires help with most daily activities. Fortunately he recovered from the infection but all didn't seem well.
He started to display anger, acts of violence and even swearing - swearing was definitely out of character - he was also obsessing over his PC. A doctor was called in who said he now has PD Dementia. He has now been taken off the Rotigotine patch as it was no longer affective. It has not been replaced.
Present day - the acts of violence of becoming frequent. A member of staff had to have medical attention after one incident. He spends all day, every day on his own in his room only coming out at meal times. Again, he won't move from his computer.
My MiL is seeing all of this and she's becoming deeply upset, withdrawing herself from community spaces and becoming reclusive, not interacting with staff or other residents. She spends a lot of time crying and getting worked up. The staff are amazing and will bring her out of her room and take her to social events in the facility. They've told us they feel sorry for her. We spend a lot of time visiting and on the phone calming her down when he is upset but we can't be there all the time.
As we are the only family - myself, my husband and our 4 year old - there is no other family to help out. My brother in law lives in Australia and has refused to return to help. It's starting to really upset us now as we don't know what to do for her. I've already quit my job so I can spend more time with her, to take her out and away from the situation as often as I can. But we have appointments for them both coming out of our ears (which we have to attend with them), school runs and my husband has to hold down a full time job to boot.
Sorry for war and peace - but any ideas what we can do for my MiL to help ease the situation? My FiL keeps begging to die and it's working her up even more.
We have appointments tomorrow with a pyschiatrist, with my FiL, and with the Alzheimer's team, with my MiL for her 6 monthly check up - hopefully some answers and help might come from that.
Any advice would be appreciated! We're so stressed with it all xx