Pysch Nurse!

I went to a called Care Conference today.
It was about granddaddy.
He has been a little more than just Mr Busybody.
He's been accused of 'inappropriate touching'.

Yes, it's out in the open, world! Like Alzheimers/Dementia doesn't have enough crap to deal with, it has this dirty little secret. It's not something you hear about often. My family didn't know about it until my dad went through the phase of 'sexual dis-inhibitions'. Actually, my grandmother, my dad's mother, still doesn't know and I'M NOT GOING TO TELL IF I CAN GET AROUND IT.

Not only does an alzheimers/dementia (here on out, we'll call it "a/d") patients have to deal with losing all kinds of abilities (walking, talking, swallowing, breathing), they gain new issues like aspirating (inhaling your food/drink/etc into your lungs), aggressive behavior and the so unfavored one: no sexual inhibitions.

Unlike aggression which can be treated with different psychotropic meds or by tweaking what meds they are on (unless the aggression is being caused by an illness such as a urinary tract infection), sexual disinhibitions is/are not treatable with drugs. Yes, you can tweak the meds to cause it to cease for a little bit but it will come back. Yes, you can sedate. No, I don't want to sedate and no, I don't want to tweak the drugs because I don't want his personality to disappear which is a high probability. Bah!! Back to a rock and a hard place. You can't put the other residents in this kind of situation and it also makes him a liability for the facility so the facility, who is not equipped to handle this type of behavior, has to deal with it in the best way they know how.

That's where we bring in the psych nurse. She/He is supposed to evaluate granddaddy and make suggestions such as tweaking the meds. He is already on Namenda. He was taken off of Aricept because:
1. the combo cocktail causes aggression in him and
2. It wasn't doing a thing for him to help with his cognitive abilities.

I said as much but basically told that they have to go through the steps, one by one.

The facility suggested home visits.

Yeah, right.

I'd love to bring him home. I'd do it with bells on if I knew I could GET HIM BACK. One of the ladies in the meeting said that he could walk with assistance. I asked her if she was willing to be there when it was time to go back to the facility and would carry him or 'assist his walking' to the van when he was kicking, screaming, crying, spitting, cussing and clawing to keep from going back. I also have to consider my grandmother's health, which is not good, in this endeavor. This woman looked at me as though I didn't want him to come home. She sure didn't offer to be the one to get him back in the van.

Ok, so when we run the course on allllll of these wonderful suggestions of which I know won't work, what happens then?

Oh yeah, that's right. Another facility. One equipped to handle this behavior. Let me explain something though. When my dad was exhibiting his aggressiveness, I called over 150 nursing homes in my states. Over 150!! (My phone bill was unbelievable!) There are alot of nursing homes/facilities/whatever-you-want-to-call-them in my state but only a *very* small handful deal with aggression. It's going to be an even smaller amount of them who will be able to handle the sexual misbehavior. They have to give me 30 days to find another facility. They even said they would find placement for him. That's helpful but they will accept anybody who says yes no matter what kind of place it is. If you've ever read inspection reports for the nursing homes in your state, you'd know that only 1 out of 10 are places you'd want your loved one to go.

Lastly, I can get around grandmama not knowing about this as long as he stays where he is. If I have to move him, I don't know what I'm going to do as far as telling her. She is a strong woman but this will tear her to pieces. I picked up the pieces of my mother when it happened to my father. I can't do this again.

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