Parkinson's(?) and the Full Time Aide

Liz called last night to talk about what is going on with Mom.  I'll summarize it the best I can.

Mom has been falling a lot and, as you probably know, everyone is concerned about this.  She also has a problem that I think was mentioned before: she sometimes cannot get her feet to move when she is trying to walk.  She'll be walking fine, pause for some reason, and then be unable to start walking again.  A number of people have suggested that this and the falling sound like Parkinson's, though she does not have some other typical Parkinson's symptoms.  The doctor (on Monday?) started her on Parkinson's medication to see if that makes a difference.  Liz tells me that it should be pretty obvious in a few days whether the medication is helping.

Meanwhile, Lima said that with all the falling they don't want her alone and she should have an aide 24/7.  So, now she has full time aide.  The hope is that the Parkinson's medication will help her significantly such that she will not need the aide for more than a short time.  The 24/7 care is not cheap and so far as I know it is not covered by Medicare (if anyone knows otherwise, let us know!).  One good thing is that her aide (at least the one Liz mentioned) is very nice and has been good company for Mom.

There was also some talk about whether she could/should move out of assisted living and into the unit that provides a higher level of care.  Currently, there are no openings like that in Lima (where Dad is) so she would have to go to a different facility.  I think we all hope she can stay in assisted living, but  we'll see.

Anyway, that is pretty much it for now.  I expect to report back once we know whether the new medication is helping.

Oh, and Liz spent a lot of time with Dad yesterday going over all the cards and letters people sent for his 85th.  Thanks to all of you who did that!

Birthdays and yet more falls

We all got together for birthdays on Saturday at Liz's (dad was 85 -- thanks to all who sent a note!).  Beautiful day and we had a great time.  Neat to get Mom and Dad out.  I think they had a lot of fun and it was good for all of us to see them, though we kept them up past bed time.

Dad seemed the same or better than the last few times I've seen him.  Mom is having more trouble.  It took a long time just to walk to the house from the car because her legs simply would not move for her.  Once she got rolling, it was not too bad, but if she stopped it was hard to get them going again.

Then she fell later that night (@ 2 AM) on the way to the bathroom and again the next afternoon by the elevator.  According to Liz:

Brenda (the nurse who called after the second fall) said she thinks Mom mostly falls backwards and lands on her back.  She looked up the results of the urine test from last week (apparently they did some other tests as well, I don't know what), and the results of all were negative.  Too bad, in a way.  She said the symptoms remind her of Parkinson's, so I think I'll ask the neurologist about that this week.  I believe they must've ruled it out earlier on, but what's to say that something new hasn't developed?  Anyway, there aren't blood tests for this sort of thing, so it's possible it wasn't obvious earlier.  Or something.  Who knows.