A Good Enough Daughter
As a professional in the field of aging, Sara had seen it all—until her own mother broke her hip at the age of 88 and became profoundly confused, unable to live in her own home. Join Sara on her journey through the strangeness that is dementia while trying to make sense of it all and finding humor in the details. [Editor's note: Sara no longer contributes to Silver Planet, but we have made her archived blog entries available as a service to our readers.]
And They Call This Medication Management?
Mom bowled over
Question: How many health care professionals does it take to determine that a frail 90-year-old woman is overmedicated?
Answer: It takes five, plus one vigilant daughter.
Last week I wrote about what appeared to me a clear case of overmedication. Mom, at a mere 88 pounds, is quite frail, but she had been able to engage and feed herself. As a matter of fact, she ate with a fair amount of gusto (tip o’ the hat to the fine cooks at Gaffney House), but when I visited her last week, she was not much more than a sack of potatoes, without the heft. She could not sit up straight, she kept falling asleep, and she could not feed herself. Worse yet, she looked like she had lost weight. Yikes!
The day before my last visit, Gaffney House staff called to suggest that I take Reva to the doctor because she was not eating. When I visited the next day, the situation seemed pretty clear to me. Why the staff did not see the obvious sooner, I do not know.
Clearly, two doses a day of anti-anxiety medications were bowling Reva over. I think the overmedication had been in effect for a couple of weeks when I saw her. She looked bad. So, one doctor, one nurse at the assisted living, one nurse at the doctor’s office, and two Gaffney House staff later, the medication was changed. Rev is doing better now.
Moral of the story: All the paid staff in the world cannot take the place of one vigilant daughter (or son, of course). Good public policy supports family caregiving—but that’s another entry.
By Sara Myers
A Good Enough Daughter Blog
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