Andrew

With the help of his sister, Andrew helped care for his grandmother and mother, who both had dementia. Andrews’s grandmother was diagnosed with dementia after being admitted to hospital, while Andrew only found out his mother had vascular dementia after seeing an MRI scan that showed she’d had strokes previously.

Andrew and his sister first began their care journey when their grandmother had a fall and was taken to hospital, where she received a hip replacement and scans. The scans found that she had dementia. Due to their grandmother’s diagnosis and deteriorating health, they were notified that she would be moved to palliative care.

They had previously noticed that their grandmother was forgetting things, including someone she had known for years. They expressed their concerns to their mother who they thought was in regular contact with their grandmother and she said there was no problem. Andrew and his sister attempted to talk to their mother about their grandmother’s condition. However, they could not get in contact with their mother. Andrew later received a call from the police who had done a welfare check and found their mother living in a state of severe self-neglect and poor conditions.

Due to her living conditions, the police, fire services and social services became involved, and their mother was admitted to hospital for self-neglect and again later following a fall. Andrew and his sister became more involved in their mother’s care and began to have greater contact with her. They also realised that their mother had not been in regular contact with their grandmother as they thought.

During their mother’s stay in hospital they received multiple diagnoses that contradicted their mother’s medical history. Upon their mother’s death, they were notified she had vascular dementia when it was listed as the secondary cause of death on her death certificate.

Andrew talks about trying to get services involved for his mother during the Covid-19 pandemic

Age at interview 43

Gender Male

And I suppose, yeah, from, in terms of trying to get a diagnosis from that point, the mental health services they had  an occupational therapist and I think a nurse who, who kind of went in and because I think all along because my mum had a good memory, no memory issues retained kind of the personable aspect that, her ability to kind of talk to people be quite charming.

But at the same time be obstructive to any notion of getting like going, going anywhere to start with going into to be assessed. The only real way to, to properly diagnose dementia of any sort is to do a, as well as a kind of clinical diagnosis, you have to do a head scan and, and there was never any question that my mum would, would do that. They were trying to, to get to that stage and build rapport and it was, it was very difficult because I think Covid was quite rife at that point, so various people, appointments would be cancelled because people had Covid and obviously the amount of time it takes to go to someone’s house. Over the next six months, I think the relationship kind of evolved a little bit and they got to the point where a psychiatrist was gonna go in and do a home visit to her which I think, I hope would’ve done something towards getting, getting a diagnosis.

Embed Print Transcript

Andrew describes the level of clutter in his mother’s house

Age at interview 43

Gender Male

Called the police, they went round and, and yeah, I received a call while I was out in my garden and that’s kind of when, yeah, I guess the world fell apart for me they said that she was surrounded by litter and general detritus, but also faeces and all that and, and she was in a very bad state and they thought that she was, she might not have long to live.

So, I went to my mum’s house and found yeah, I had a key for it. Managed to get in and most of the downstairs was pretty much waist deep in in rubbish. And there were sort of drifts that were very high and, and sort of this, there is rubbish everywhere essentially. My mum was in hospital at that point and I understood that the fire service had, had basically requested that she was kept in no matter what because it was unsafe to get back. She is a heavy smoker and she was smoking in this room, her living room that was surrounded by boxes a huge fire risk.

Embed Print Transcript