How to get a referral?

[WannaBeKeptWifey]

We've been worried about my MIL for quite some time now. She retired a couple of years ago and really misses the social side of her job. She's very much a social butterfly. She's been losing a lot of weight and eating nowhere near as much as she used to. She's repeats things multiple times and doesn't recall saying those things before, there have been moments we've had to repeat things multiple times and she reacts as if it's new information, she repeats the same stories when we see her, struggles to cut up her food and she also phases out of conversations at times, where she was very attentive and involved before. My father in law has to help her a lot more now, like putting on her shoes. Even people that don't know her as well say that she isn't the same. She has days where she is better than others, but we have definitely noticed this past year it is getting worse. My sister in law has been to the doctors with her on many occasions and all they seem to be offering is blood tests and nothing else. How can we push for a referral? Going private would cost £650, but I don't see why we should be forced to take the private route. Any advice?

With my DM the first thing the GP did was order blood tests and dipped urine. When these came back clear he then referred to the memory clinic

Have you asked the GP to give her a quick memory test? That was the first step for my mum. She didn’t do well on it at all so then they tested her to rule out UTI and vitamin deficiencies as the cause of her poor memory and confusion and referred her to the memory clinic who diagnosed her and gave her medication.

You have to let them rule out medical causes for the confusion first.

I think it's just down to whether the patient is willing to be referred. My family member was very unwilling. It's hard to explain to someone that their memory is going, if they can't remember that you've said it.

From what I've seen of family and friends, an awful lot of people get diagnosed after some crisis, like a fall. I think it would be much easier on the patient to have the diagnosis first though, because it's quite hard to go into hospital with a broken bone or whatever, when they also have an undiagnosed memory problem.

Ideally you would want to be asking her about her wishes for end of life care too, while she still is able to give her views, but it's a fantastically hard thing to ask. People with dementia seem to go on for about a decade after they lose the ability to express their views on their own care and it's an awfully long time to be watching someone suffer and not know what they would actually want.

My DM is at the tail end of this process now and it's been very hard for about 15 years.

@raffles25 yes, she seems to be having nothing but blood tests atm. Seems to be going on forever.

@Choux I think she had some kind of assessment when we were first starting to notice things weren't right with her. They seemed to think it was anxiety related but does seem to be getting worse as time passes and more people are commenting on it. They've been doing blood tests as well. Just seems to be taking months.

@ItIsReallyFine I'm sorry you've had to deal with that 😔 it must be very hard and heartbreaking 💔 I think she wants to get to the bottom of it too as I know she has been frustrated at times