Memory issues with DM so stressful

[daffodillament]

Just looking for some advice from anyone in a similar situation. My DM 83 until recently has been pretty fab for her age. Always on the go, helping me with kids loads although mine are now 19, 16 and 11 and I think she really misses being as involved as she was when they were younger. She has a great social life which includes going to see local bands at least once a week and will make a point of being first up on the dance floor ! The trouble I'm having at the moment is that she's constantly losing her credit cards, must have lost at least 12 in the last six weeks, the common thing being that she'll forget there's one in the post and go to the bank, order a new one and then when the one in the post arrives it's already been cancelled because my mum has forgotten what's happening. This is a regular pattern. When it first happened I asked if I could look after the card for her and made sure she had a enough cash at home so she wouldn't need it, she was initially happy with this idea, then while she was out that same eve she had a massive panic when she noticed the card was not in purse, she had forgotten that I was holding it for her. This is happening so frequently now that I'm starting to lose the plot, I dread the phone ringing for fear of what's going to happen next. I do now have a third party bank card that she can use when she loses it again which is helpful. Other things like forgetting what month we are in, she turns up at my house when I'm in work and kids are at school, she'll turn up at wrong time when we arrange to meet for coffee etc..We are attending the memory clinic and she is being assessed. I found some memory medication at her house the other day that she'd been given in Feb from her gp, dose was for day 1 a day but only 3 had been taken out of the box but I knew nothing about this. I think she thought she'd been given anti-anxiety medication ? After talking with memory clinic nurse they advised that I make sure she starts taking them regularly along with her statin every morning. Thanks for reading while I've waffled on and on. On the whole I would say she is OK when distracted from worrying about the card situation but the card situation is not letting up. Just to add she's very independent and wants to remain this way. What advice can you guys please give me ? Thankyou.

Really good suggestions from PP especially with POA etc. Regarding the medication side of things, the amount is probably only going to increase. My Dad used one of those heavy duty pill holders (morning, noon, night + additional) and made up a weeks worth at a time for my Grandmother. Dad had to keep on top of the medication changes and made sure she took everything having them made up in advance helped matters. Eventually he quit his job and became her carer, this continued until she became an actual danger to herself and my Grandad, then she went into a specialist dementia home.

My Dad always kept excellent records of what was happening on the medical side so that any new carers or nurses popping in always knew what was going on. Also we created a Memory book which was just large A4 pictures laminated in a folder with basic captions. This memory book was helpful for those attending to her, offered a distraction and was an easy way to gauge her lucidity by asking who someone was in a picture.

I know your Mum is not near this stage yet but my Grandmother was a similar age when it started and within 4 years had to go into the dementia home. It can escalate quite quickly in some cases.