Last summer, Michael detected slippage in his mother’s memory. “We’d be having a normal conversation,” he says, “and suddenly she’d ask, ‘What do you do? Where do you work?’ This freaked me out, but I chalked it up to ‘old age.’ But when my mother forgot to pay household expenses and started getting depressed, I couldn’t ignore that something more was happening. Because I work in social services, I knew about Seniors At Home and called immediately for help.”
The Seniors At Home professionals provided practical and emotional support that benefited both Michael and his mother. “They advised me to speak to my mother’s doctors and suggested that I request that they conduct a pharmaceutical assessment,” he says. “It turns out that while my mother does have some dementia, some of her medications didn’t work well together and were causing memory lapses. Her dosages were adjusted, and she is doing better. Some of the gastrointestinal problems she was experiencing also resolved, thanks to medication adjustment.”
With the guidance of Seniors At Home, Michael also persuaded his mother that she get some home care. “This was a hurdle I’d never been able to pass before,” says Michael. “It was always clear to me that my mother needed some help around the house—cleaning, cooking, shopping, and other errands. But she always put up a fight, and it became a battle of the wills. The gerontologists and nurses gave me useful, compassionate language so that my mother and I could have difficult discussions that didn’t end in screaming matches.”
For Michael, the Seniors At Home assistance was invaluable. “It is very painful to watch someone you love become someone you don’t know,” he says. “They helped me work through my anger and helplessness about the situation, and I was able to process my despair over my mother’s situation and still be available to her at a difficult time in her life.”
To learn how Seniors At Home can provide support to your family, contact the office nearest you or call 415-449-3777.
