Memory Assessment advice

[cloudofpink]

I am looking for advice on how I can get my mum to have a memory assessment.

She is 72, sole carer for my disables brother and has been getting increasingly more 'muddled' as she calls it. Examples are:

• losing track of time and being home later than she needs to be,
• getting everyones Christmas presents mixed up as she couldn't remember who everything was bought for,
• forgetting whether or not she has POA for my brother - she has just told me she has found all the paperwork and she does have it - I know, as it was arranged years ago and I knew exactly where the papers are (I am about to apply for guardianship of him).
• forgetting details of important meetings we have had with social workers to discuss my brother care
• telling me things she has already told me (often several times)
• getting train tickets to the wrong place
• losing things and then spending ages looking for them
• forgetting that she has been given new medication - when I have seen it and asked her about it she has denied being given anything.

She has not been sleeping very well recently either and blames this on tinnitus. I also know that medication can affect her memory. Her elder sister (76) has been diagnosed with dementia.

I am getting increasingly more worried about her and my brother. I have already started making arrangements for him to be moved out of home into a residential care home as I think the time for that has come. I live about an hour away, work full time and have 2 children, so am limited to how much I can do to help. She doesn't have any other close friends or family close by.

I really want mum to have her memory assessed, and have been asking her since January to mention her memory to her GP. I don't think she has yet and I am wondering if I can call her GP and ask for her to be assessed or am I going to have to take time off work to go with her and make sure she does. I am in Scotland if that makes a difference.

Can anyone give me advice please.

Hello this sounds difficult and I sympathise as my Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimers the same year as my brother was finally diagnosed with a serious mental illness, they live together.
With Dad I found I had to take the initiative and make an appointment with the GP and attend with him. He did agree to this after some persuasion. As he gave consent at that point for me to help him manage his appointments/ prescriptions etc (basically front run his medical care) the practice were then only too happy to fully co operate with me, they knew he hadn't been coping for a while. The GP referred on to a psychogeratrician who eventually diagnosed him with AD. Around the same time I started talking to Dad about power of attorney, again he eventually agreed. I don't need to tell you how important that is, as you already have the experience of it with your brother.
None of this is easy and I hope things work out as well as possible for you and yourr mum and brother. They are lucky to have you around.

Hi I have just been going through this with my DM. I live 200 miles away and she is 84. Phone calls have been getting more and more difficult, but she was adamant she didn't need to be assessed by the GP about 4 months ago.

Then about 6 weeks ago, she got into a bit of a twist over something in her house and other people were concerned about her. I said to her that I thought we should go and see her GP together to get her checked out and make sure everything was OK. She actually agreed to it and we went last week.

The GP gave her a short Memory Assessment and it was obvious things were not right - she is now going for other tests and will have a full assessment at the Memory Clinic - just waiting for the appointment to come through.