My mom entered a skilled nursing home nine months ago after a fall that fractured her hip. She has vascular dementia and didn't remember she was hurt. She was put into a rehab for a couple of weeks and didn't want to comply with the exercises they were trying to get her to do. Needless to say she never walked very well since. I made the decision to make her a resident there. She was very aggressive and aggitatied towards whoever tried to help her. They had put her on depakote for her agitation. This gave her bad direrrhea and she got dehydrated. I was finally able to get her off of it, but now she is hardly eating and yes the agitation is back. They want me to consider hospice, cause they feel as if she continues on the same course she will die in about three months from what the nurses say. Now hospice wants to take Mom off of alot of meds she needs and I'm not for that. I feel like I'm pulling the plug on her. They say all her labs look good, now only if she would just eat. I feel I'm at the end of the Rd with no direction to go forward. I've always been there to save Mom or protect Mom but what now? She's very weak from not eating. I take her food up all the time and try to get her to eat. She is an HR away from me now. There is a place closer to me that I'd like to get her moved to but I don't want to make her worse. The home she's in now says it will confuse her and make her worse but at the stage she's in I really wonder if that's true. I'd sure like Mom to be ten mins away rather than an HR away. Any advice would be appreciated.
You can ask her doctor for referral to palliative care and hospice care. The goal is to provide your mom with the best quality of life regardless of how much life she has yet to live.
I am so very sorry.