My dad is getting nowhere with his doctor I don't know what to do
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We have noticed over the last year my dad 64 is becoming increasingly forgetful we approached him with this and he couldn't see it. He is no longer working due to this as his employer also noted it. An example would be he was making dinner and told us we were all having Stew he went into the kitchen came out with dinner which was fish. We asked him what happened to the Stew to which he looked confused and embarrassed and replied eh I didn't think u all wanted it so made this. This may seem trivial but this is one thing in a long list of things. We eventually managed to get him to go to the docs and he was told an appointment would be sent for the memory clinic. 6 months later no appointment so he went again after much persuasion the docs said he doesn't need the clinic as scored 30 points. I have no idea what this means or if in fact it is correct. I am struggling to know what to do now. Any help would be appreciated.
0 likes, 5 replies
mike09523 annmarie50088
Posted
Hi,
I am 67 and went to the memory clinic a few months ago. The memory test is scored out of 30 with 30 out of 30 the top score. I scored 27 and was sent for an mri of my head. At the time the so called physiciatrist told me it was likely I had early onset of vascular dementia.
We waited 4 weeks for the mri and results and we're told it was negative, no problems at all.
He then suggested that the amatryptaline I was taking, along with other med for pain, we're the cause of memory loss.
Referring to my mental breakdown and ptsd, anxiety and depression he told me to put all my troubles behind me and grow a pair, well that's how it came across, I came home a lot worse than I went out- because going out is part of my troubles.
Best of luck,
mike
annmarie50088 mike09523
Posted
Sorry to hear the time you've had of it. Hope things get better for you.
heather83390 annmarie50088
Posted
annmarie50088 heather83390
Posted
lily65668 annmarie50088
Posted
Hi annmarie, I could be wrong but it sounds as if you're n the UK. If this is the case, I can only sympathise.
My mother started developing vascular dementia at age 80. She was living alone, I was living 200 miles away, but was making ever more frequent trips to be with her, leaving me unable to hold down a permanent job. It took me eight years to finally get her an appointment at the memory clinic (in Surrey in 2006). By that time she couldn't even find the toilet in her own house. At the clinic, she scored 23 on the memory test, which I was told was borderline normal, and didn't entitle us to any help. I gather the main reason for the high score was that my mother had always been fantastic at mental arithmetic and also with words (naming objects, sentence construction) so did very well on those two parts of the test. The specialist said that the fact that she couldn't remember any of the words she was given, even immediately afterwards, didn't know her date of birth, address, what season or year it was (she guessed 1979) was completely irrelevant, given her skill with numbers and words.
She had a fall six months later and was admitted to hospital, where she starved herself to death. She was due to be discharged the day after she died, by which time she weighed just 34kg and was completely helpless - and still I was told we wouldn't get a care package.
I tried everything I could. I'm a former NHS nurse, albeit from way back when, so understood the system, and I'm also quite assertive. However, nothing worked.
In the short term, I agree that you need to keep asking your father's GP for a referral. Under NHS rules a GP can't refuse to give a referral in cases where it's clearly relevant. However, because of all the cuts (and it was the same under a government of a different flavour in 2006) they try to avoid doing this.
I hope you fare better than we did at the memory clinic. It can depend entirely on what region of the country you're in. One of the doctors at the hospital where my mum died said it was a political issue. The South-East was seen as an affluent area (though goodness knows we weren't) where people were unlikely to vote for the government of the day in 2006, so resources weren't put into it.