Couples are supposed to (at least in the movies I guess) grow old together, and walk off into the sunset. Sometimes things go a bit awry when people get into their late 80’s. Namely if the man becomes demented and the woman develops depression and suicidal ideation. You can see this is not going to end well. The police get called because the wife is witnessed beating the man in the head with her cane by the guy who delivers the meals to the elderly. The man (who has Alzheimer’s) is cursing about his wife and daughter saying they are “both bitches” – he claims the daughter moved to Italy and now “hates her parents because they are Jewish”. The wife says her husband is “a giant pain in the ass whenever he comes back from adult daycare” and says he is always trying to strangle her. So she beat him with a cane.
Trying to sort through this whole situation with them and the police – all via a translator telephone service was supremely time consuming. They did not want to press charges against each other (the police officer was relieved), however, what the heck were we supposed to do with them? Basically they could not live together on their own any more and had to be admitted for “failure to thrive”, “alleged assault”, and “Alzheimer’s dementia with agitation”. More or less “Social worker disposition” (a totally non-reimbursable diagnosis by the way). Well, that was one hour my life I ain’t gettin’ back – and the “to be seen” rack keeps growing…..
Sad, and happens way too often.
As one of my old teachers used to say, “NHP is not a DX”.
Sad, sad, situation, and the fear of, “that could be us one day.”
It is one hour of your time, but it was necessary and not a terrible use of your time. Helping to solve this physical and psychic problem was, indeed, an emergency, and the interventions initiated here were supremely useful.
There are many kinds of medicine and the perimeters are not so neat.
Very well said, Kay.
Unfortunately Kay, I am not a social worker and I do not think it is a good use of my time trying to be one. Of course this sort of thing happens at night when there is no social worker on site. I guess I could have kept them there for the night but the place was packed and we needed the rooms. I knew within about 30 seconds there was no real acute medical problem but yet spent an hour trying to figure out what to do with them. Somehow explaining to the people waiting for three hours that I had to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what to do with a demented couple who were fighting did not make them any more understanding. Pretty soon I just told the people waiting that I was dealing with a caridac arrest.
I am a social worker. As a student, I interned at big scary level one trauma teaching hospital that also had a big psy ER as well. And all social workers worked day shift…unbelieveable. The senior social workers took call but did very little at night other than authorize taxi vouchers. When I left they just decided to hire a discharge planner to work the evening shift.
What’s with the porno ads ERP?
Actually M, that Evony ad is for an online adventure game – although I agree, it looks like it could be porn.