Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Alzheimer’s alone can last ten years.

Hard to say for your dad with the other issues. However, a nurse told me we were doing too many life-saving maneuvers with my grandmother. For example, the hospital was filling my grandmother up with IV fluids, including potassium, to prevent heart issues.

Grandmother was 102 by the way.

Eventually, we moved to hospice care inside a nursing home. This is not what I’d recommend but grandmother was of sound mind to the end and made this choice based on suggestions from a pushy nursing home sales lady.

And it is hard to tell your grandmother she really needs to go to the hospice that is 100% hospice…

You’re referring to inpatient hospice, but to be eligible, you must have clinical symptoms that cannot be managed at home - like the need for IV pain meds, etc.

She was given morphine soon after arriving at the nursing home and she was NPO by that point.

Idk but hospice in a nursing home was horrible.

We could not do hospice at home bc the law required someone staying with her 24-7, and I could not quit my job to do that.

Instead she got her to hear old people scream,
“Get that corpse out of here.”

It was great.

What does this mean? The hospice helps them to die because they only eat what they want to eat when they want? Does the hospice administer medication or anything like that? I'm trying to ask this in a nice way not an accusing way. I think it's ridiculous to force feed elders who just want to be left alone to die.

For my mom, it was offering easy to swallow food or ensure but not pushing it. She would eat a little and then stop. One day she might have more, the next day almost nothing. Hospice told me that at a certain point in the dying process they recommend no food as it can lead to aspiration pneumonia. My mom just kind of stopped eating about 3-4 days before she passed and only small sips of water until the end.

I will say that at her memory card the aides were very intent at first on getting food into her and would spend a lot of time with her trying to get her to eat. It came from a good place and a belief she could recover. Meanwhile our hospice nurse felt that she would not make a meaningful recovery and giving her a peaceful death was paramount. I felt caught in the middle so I asked all
The aides to co tinie to offer nutrition but do not push it and stop if she coughed or is not swallowing wells I also reminded myself that my mom was adamant about not prolonging her life if she had severe dementia.