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  1. #106
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    Quote Originally Posted by skot View Post
    To those who have already had an ACAT Assessment on your loved one, can anyone give me a rough idea of length of time from the assessment to receiving the report ?

    Weeks ? Months ?
    Can't remember exactly - about 4 weeks for my mum turns out it was sent to the wrong address!
    For my MIL it took less than a week.

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  3. #107
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    Jul 2003
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    Riverhills, Brisbane
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    Received the ACAT Report today....6 days from Assessment to getting the report in the mail.

    Very impressed with that speed. Mum has been approved for Home Care Package Level 2 and Respite Care for up to 63 days per financial year and also has been approved for Permanent Aged Care when that is needed.

  4. #108
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    Went to see mum yesterday - conversation went something like this

    Mum: You know there are a lot of robbers around here.
    ME: really, what's gone missing now?
    Mum: my fingernail clippers, and my . . . . . . my soap, and my . . . . . . . lipstick.
    Me: When I find things go missing I stop worrying about it and they eventually turn up. Sometimes it takes months or years before they turn up.
    Mum: Well I might not live that long.
    Pause . . . .

    Mum: We're not safe in out beds here, we don't know what the robbers are going to take next?
    Me: I think you are pretty safe in here and you can always lock your door
    Mum Oh, all the robbers have keys.
    Me: Surely only you and the staff have keys.
    Mum: I reckon some of the staff give their keys to the robbers.
    Pause: I don't know what to say . . .

    Mum: I found one of the women (residents) in my room look through my make up drawer, she had a evil covetous look on her face while she fondled a lipstick.
    Me: Did she take it?
    Mum No, I told her to leave my stuff alone.
    Me: Good on you - did you lock the door.
    Mum: yes but the robbers stole my key so I couldn't get back in.
    Me: what about the spare key?
    Mum: that was locked in my room.
    Me: Did etc staff let you back in?
    Mum: yes and the robber had put my other key back.
    Pause

    Mum: You know there are a lot of robbers around here.
    me: Sigh!

    It goes around and around a few times until I distract her by talking about old times - and I do mean old times like the 1940s.

  5. #109
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    It is a bit of a trial. All the best BobL. I had a long talk with my sister who between her & I are responsible for Mum. We are trying to let go of any frustration with the repetitions. As long as she is not harming herself or anyone else, we let most of her odd behaviour pass over us as there is no use thinking it will improve. The downward slide is inevitable...just go along with the journey with your mum.

  6. #110
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    It goes around and around a few times until I distract her by talking about old times - and I do mean old times like the 1940s.
    The 40's....do the chats involve talking about WW2 ? I have had talks with mum about when she was young, she grew up in a house next to an armaments factory. Tells me how her older sister was digging an air raid trench in the back yard while my mum & her younger brother were in a nearby tree. A worker walked past and said it was a waste of time digging a trench. If an enemy ever dropped a bomb & hit the factory..most of the suburb would disappear. This was in Brisbane.

  7. #111
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    Quote Originally Posted by skot View Post
    The 40's....do the chats involve talking about WW2 ?
    Mum grew up and was living in a ~1000 person village in northern Italy and was 12 when WW2 arrived. There are heaps of stories - I could write a book chapter about them. Her dad was a blacksmith and horse trader and they lived in a house on the village square next door to the Fascist police station. When Italy surrendered in 1943 the Germans arrived and took over the police station and confiscated gramp's horses so gramps had to go and work around farms on a push bike. The farmers still used ox and cart for transport and farming and the ox were often shod.

    Aside from the Germans, and Italian military under german command, there were curfews, partisans, escaped criminals, communists, black marketeers, etc etc. To get away from the Germans the family moved away from the village onto a farm in the countryside where they often gave help to the partisans. At that stage mum had left school and home and gone into "service" to work as a chamber maid/child carer for a wealthy family. Here she was somewhat sheltered except every Sunday afternoon when she was allowed to ride her bike on the back roads to see her family some 20km away and had to be back by 6pm.

    Two of mum's cousins deserted from the Italian army and joined the partisans, one was captured by the germans and hung from a lamp post in the town square and left there till the body rotted and fell off the rope. The other hid in the attic of family home in town right alongside the german manned police station and eventually fled to the mountains.

    Once gramps was arrested for being on the road with his blacksmith tools outside the curfew hours and spent 3 days being "interrogated", luckily he was released.

    In a nearby village partisans killed a german officer. The whole population was turned out and lined up along the main road and an officer went down the line and picked out every 10th person and they were shot.

    Then when the Allies finally started to over run the area the retreating germans took off their uniforms and ran for it, they had no food, so they pilfered and robbed what they could. A lot of the injured were left behind and in bad shape and they would seek to exchange a blanket or a greatcoat for an egg or a sausage. One german officer offered my grandma an exquisite windup Swiss clock in exchange for a chicken but grandma gave the officer half a loaf of bread and told him to keep his clock as he could eat the bread but she had no wish to have a clock to look at to remind herself of what had happened.

    I think that's enough.

  8. #112
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    Mum made an appointment yesterday with her doctor for an ailment she has. I took her to the medical centre today and a member of the family now sits in on mum's appointments so that we get all the correct info first hand. Towards the end of the consultation the Doctor looks at mum and says "Your memory is not too good and we will have to discuss that soon."

    I thought it was recorded on her medical charts and he brought it up to remind mum about her poor memory.......Nope......Doctor says to Mum......"The reason I say that is that you rang 3 times yesterday to make the appointment. Do you recall doing that?" Mum blankly looks at him and shakes her head. This is not the 1st time she has made multiple phone calls to the doctor for the same appointment.

  9. #113
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    I regularly visit 3 specialists and my GP, and have increasingly found myself at the wrong time and place.

    A couple of weeks back I had two appointments on the same day and turned up at 9am at the specialist rooms after having paid $7 for parking only to find out I was two hours early and should have been at the GP. Had to go away and come back and pay another $7 for parking and make a new GPs appointment!

    Luckily 2 of the specialists are in the same building so if I stuff those 2 up I can just run along the corridor to the right one.

  10. #114
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    Canberra
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    [QUOTE=skot;2125057I thought it was recorded on her medical charts and he brought it up to remind mum about her poor memory.......Nope......Doctor says to Mum......"The reason I say that is that you rang 3 times yesterday to make the appointment. Do you recall doing that?" Mum blankly looks at him and shakes her head. This is not the 1st time she has made multiple phone calls to the doctor for the same appointment.[/QUOTE]

    But the good thing is she was still able to make that decision to phone and make an appt.

  11. #115
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    Mums latest "filters are off".

    My sister picked mum up from the care facility and brought mum over t our place for arvo tea.
    It was nice weather so we sat outside and for the first time in years mum saw our back yard.
    Over in a side garden there is a ~500 x300 x 250 mm chunk of tree trunk chainsaw carved into the shape of a heart - it was one of my trial pieces when I was playing around with chainsaw carving.

    Mum saw it and asked, "Why have you got an upside wooden arrss in your garden?"

  12. #116
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    The siblings got together to discuss Mum's future care with the intention of talking to Mum in the next few weeks about
    a) Moving in with by brother's family - his wish...the other 3 of us were trying to convince him that it is a long hard road...or
    b) Aged Care

    Both of those are now on the backburner as our visit to the Geriatrician has shown that Mum has put on 2 kgs since last visit AND her memory has improved 3 points. She is now on stronger memory medication which is no longer left to her to take.
    I organised BlueCare to come in each day for medicine prompt as well as making sure she has the pills washed down with a container of Sustagen.

    So we are keeping Mum in her own home at present and will look at moving her to my brother's place if & when mum starts to go backwards again.

    Geriatrician says it's worth it to "try & fail" at brother's place than not try at all.

    We all know and have agreed that if Mum becomes too much for brother to take care of....she has to go into Aged Care.

  13. #117
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    BobL,
    How is your mum doing in Care ? I hope she is settled in and some pressure has been taken off you and your siblings.

    This came to mind as we are just at the point where Mum is about to go and live with my brother and his wife. It came to a head 2 weeks ago when I checked in on mum to give her medication and found that she had burnt milk on the stove as she had forgotten she was heating it up. I didn't make a big deal of it but it happened again the next day and I needed to discuss with her the next step.

    Since then my brother & sisters have gently suggested to Mum about her moving to my brother's place and in the past week, we think she has either warmed to the idea or realises she can't fight it.

    Our visit to the Geriatrician yesterday also had the specialist encouraging mum and suggesting that it would be the best thing to do and that it would be better for her health to be around family most of the day and socialising more , than sitting at home on her own staring at the walls and only seeing me for a short time every day or so, or when we go shopping. It will be hard for her to sell the home but we believe it is in her best interests for safety and her mental state.

    Well it's onwards and upwards to the next stage....this is not an easy journey for any family.

  14. #118
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    Quote Originally Posted by skot View Post
    BobL,
    How is your mum doing in Care ? I hope she is settled in and some pressure has been taken off you and your siblings..
    Mum is OK - getting slowly more confused about where she is and who belongs to whom.
    She won't let anyone help her wash and she's fallen over twice in the shower in the last few months - nothing serious but it's going to happen again sooner or later.
    Every ache and pain she has is talked about repeatedly - over a one hour visit she will mention the latest ache/pain at least 10 times. Nothing much else to talk about I suppose.
    Mum complains about the food but still eats everything that is put in front of her. She's actually put on weight probably because she has stopped gardening but still eats the same amount

    Mum gets out 2-3 times a week but only with Family. The care facilities provides outings and it 12 months mum has been on one, mum still doesn't engage with other residents and spends a lot of time in her room.

    Hope you mum's move goes OK.

    Cheers
    Bob

  15. #119
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    We were told that this was going to be a hard slog and they weren't wrong.
    After moving Mum to live with my brother, she was sad for the first 3 days and was strangely concerned that she had deserted me.
    My brother got her to give me a call and after explaining that I was happy that she was able to be with family everyday and have more social interaction, she seemed like a changed person....happy and contented it appeared.

    Then this morning my brother tells me that she was crying again and saying that she was a nuisance and should go home. That is impossible due to the fact that my brother took 2 carloads of her personal items with them when she moved and I took her bed up to Toowoomba for her last week end. We have discovered as we look around her old place that it wasn't just milk that she had burnt on the stove. We discovered her ironing board with a small towel draped over it...when we looked under the towel the iron board cover was scorched through.

    Mum rang me and said that she might come home in a couple of days and when I said to her that she now lives with my brother, she denied that it was ever discussed with her, regardless of the the 3 weeks of daily conversations we had with her about moving, the carloads of her possessions that went with her and me delivering her own comfy bed...it still doesn't sink in. She tells us that she has been at my brother's place for a couple og months but it has only been 10 days.

    This is going to be a long haul with plenty of patience but it definitely reinforces the decision to not let her live on her own anymore.

  16. #120
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    It all sounds very familiar and I don't like saying it to say it, but In many cases it will get worse for your mum and your family

    In my previous post I mentioned mum won't let anyone help her wash etc and that she has fallen over twice in the last few months. Well, after her last fall which, being of stoic stock, she made light of the fall and she said she was OK. As usual she complained of every other ache and pain and last week we found out she was still in pain from the fall, and it turns out she has two small bone chips and a torn ligament in her hip! As a result her physical activity (ie short walks) Has gone from "light" to almost nothing.

    This week she doesn't know if she's in her room or someone else's. She complained that they have changed her bed, it has been moved about 1/2m along the wall so that staff can get to her easily from either side of the bed, and that is enough to confuse her. When visiting her after ~30 minutes she appears too tired to keep up a conversation.

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