Pushy v. Privacy: When your parent has dementia

Oh, that's a tough one. I guess I would think that if Mom is counting on her daughter to take care of her through her aging and illnesses, then daughter really should be in on the conversations so everyone's on the same page. Or put in for power of attorney, possibly?

I've been able to strike a middle ground, after expressing my concerns to my mother and her primary care provider. I take part in the part of the visit that happens with clothes on, in the doctor's office. I sit in the waiting room during the part of the visit that happens when my mother's clothes are off. That helps her preserve her privacy, while keeping me more in the loop.

Hi, I am Pam and new to the list.  I watched my mom diagnosed with "mild dementia" visit with her docs for four years.  I watched her get steadly worse and her doc schedule appts every 3 months,.  I finally asked the doc if he considered my mom a "reliable informant".  Mom could not remember a lot of what she was doing.  He asked me to write him a letter, which by the way then "has to be included in the medical file".  I did.  After her read the letters from my brother and myself he changed her diagnosis. He also put her under 24/7 supervision and with her other doc the produced a two physician statement that she was not competent to administer her medical or financial needs. Thank God we had a Living Trust set up and part of that included POA for incapcitation. Mom was much worse then he imagined.  After i started going into her appointments with her i was amazed at how well she could pull it together for the appointment. I was equally amazed at the level of decompensation she had following the doc appt from using that much energy to " present well". Her diagnosis is Frontal Lobe dementia and Vascular Dementia. She is 71.     SUGGESTION:  Write a letter to doc and in it cite examples of behaviors that give you concern, areas of physical deterioration, financial, etc.  Until I stayed with mom for 6 weeks I did not see just how bad things had become. It was an eye opening experience.

Hope this helps,

Pam