Looking for experiences or advice on having major surgery with dementia.
Mum has Alzheimer's. She is 84 and I would class her as 'early moderate'. She has no problem recognising people, chats, no wandering or evidence of later symptoms, but she has a very poor short term memory now. She cannot remember anything told to her even minutes later, cannot organise or plan, use money etc. She lives with my 87 year old father. He does a lot for his age - has taken over all household organisation and cooking. They have a cleaner, have the garden done and I do all the food shopping, phone calls, admin, hospital appts etc.
Mum is in urgent need of a hip replacement. She is on the urgent list and is probably set for surgery some time in December. She can no longer go outside the house without a wheelchair and inside just about manages to shuffle around with a trolly.
The issue is - we feel between a rock and a hard place. Without hip surgery her hip will almost certainly fail in the not to distant future and she will be housebound / bedridden.
With hip surgery - we have been told it will almost certainly make the dementia worse in the short term and could possibly be permanent. Mum had to have a pre-asessment as she has a number of ongoing health issues besides. They said she was physically fit enough for surgery, but there is a chance that with dementia she would need to go into institutional care if it affects her badly / permanently.
What to do?
Dad is worried if she doesn't have it done (although I have said we can get more care for them at home if that's the case... I've been trying to get him to have more care anyway!!) But I am worried it will impact the dementia and then Mum may not be able to stay at home for her own safety anyway.
Last time Mum was in hospital she had delusions and was getting out of bed in the night - this was two years ago - so things have deteriorated generally since then anyway.
Does anyone have any insights... I just want to do the best for Mum!
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Dementia & Alzheimer's
Having surgery with dementia?
17 replies
Pebble21uk · 18/11/2021 12:02
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