Anxiety through the roof. No uti, refuses to go to a day program and refuses outside help. I cant imagine what middle stage dementia is if this is so bad in early stages. I do her meds. Showers ect.. I'm a bit worn out but okay. My mom is going back to a child state. I get alot of good laughs tho. I just feel sad this is happening so FAST!! ITS CRAZY! I've always been real close with mom but it's like I'm the mom now. I feel like I'm watching what used to be my support and such a strong beautiful woman wilt away. I work fulltime and take her out either on sat or sunday but her anxiety is terrible. Shes like a deer in the head lights. I try to remember to enjoy the time I have because its ending very soon
She needs a good evaluation and labs to rule out anything physical going on. A neurologist to evaluate what type she has so the correct meds are prescribed.
If she is living alone, she shouldn't be.
IMHO a diagnosis of MCI is nothing but a "baby step" for the doctor to prepare the family of a diagnosis of Dementia.
Antianxiety medications can help with many of the things your mom is experiencing now.
You are in the health field, you are aware of the problems that can arise with caring for someone with dementia. You need caregivers to come in and help out. You need to prepare the house to make it easier to care for her. Or you need to consider Memory Care placement.
Your comment of enjoying the time now as it can end soon. It may not end soon but she will change and things she does this week will be different than what she does next week or next month. There is a possibility that you will be caring for your mom for 5 years, 10 years or it could be less, it could be more. No one has a "expiration date" coded somewhere on the body.
THEN—- she had a severe stroke (should have been fatal) and miraculously managed to fight her way through that, to return to her little cottage, get up at 3 every morning, and live on coffee, hamburger, potatoes, butter and cookies.
Then she broke her hip, and deconstructed in a matter of weeks. I expected her to live with me until she could “get around”, then go “home” again and resume her bizarre lopsided self-managed life.
And what ACTUALLY HAPPENED was that she never returned to her feet, physically or cognitively or in any other way.
After a little over 9 terrible months with me, she entered a wonderful local skilled nursing facility (barely months before the concept of “assisted living” became a reality in our area) and lived there in unexpected peace and comfort until her death at 95.
Anxiety had ruled and reined over her entire life, and only in the cloistered peace and security and structure of her SNC life did she seem to find a sense of calm.
Everything she’d “refused” to do for herself before became a good life, when it became her only alternative. And for me, visiting every day for her remaining 5+ years, it was a cozy, exhausting merry go round based on the safety, security, and comfort for someone whom I’d learned to love very late in her life.
As soon as you can, take each day as she offers it. She’s not the mom you knew a week ago, but there may be glimpses of the best mom she can be in every experience you have with her.
Watch for those moments, savor them, and store them.
Some of my best memories of my mother are who she was in her last 5 years.