Jan, it may seem cruel to you, if it was you or I, but if its any small
consolation, would she understand or benefit at all from any of community,
birthday parties and holiday celebrations? Looking at some of the residents
where my father is, anything at all could happen and they would be unaware.
They are unable to join in anything, the only difference is they are in a
chair rather than a bed but apart from that they seem to be in a very
passive state, unaware of anything thats happening.

Good luck, hope you can work through your issues.

Jan-ed, you are absolutely right; you lost your mom much earlier due to AD.
It just breaks your heart to see someone you love in that condition, but
that's how it happens.  Some on here have been through something very
similar, if not the same thing you're going through now.  I'm sure they will
share with you and give you the support you need.  My husband had surgery
that went bad before he reached the final stages of AD and he was in the NH
only 8 months before he died.  All my tears had been shed before that time.
Stay with us and keep us posted, please.
Gwen

Jan, I really feel for you - but even if she hadn't broken her hip, the
end result would be the same. Its not the hip, its the cursed disease.

My mother in law broke her hip two years before she died, and although
in theory she should have been able to walk following her hip repair,
she was too confused to do the therapy, so after we tried and tried...
that was the end of the walking, and she spent the last two years of
her life in a wheelchair, or in bed. Continence went at the same time,
and intelligible speech a few months later.

Once she couldn't walk, she had to go to a nursing floor, because she
needed heavy care - and I strongly suspect that she would have lost the
ability to walk shortly anyway, hip break or no, since her sense of
balance was really going and being on her feet had begun to really
frighten her - not helped by the fact she was too addled to use a
walker or cane properly.Many people with AD just lose the coordination
and balance to walk, or essentially forget how.

My MIL also went from a private room to a shared room on the nursing
ward - we had a long wait for the spot on the nursing ward, so we took
the first bed we could get). Sadly, by that time, she didn't really
know where she was, so it made no difference to her that she was no
longer on the AD ward, or in the privacy of her own room. She also
didn't seem to miss the activity - just too far gone to care.

The whole thing just breaks your heart.

Mary

"Jan-ed" <jnewday@bellcoho.com> wrote in message
...>

Same thing happened with my mother.  You are fortunate to have grief
support.
I tried to get in a group but there was nothing available - it was all
focused on
the physical death of loved ones.

The nursing home got Mom up each day in a wheelchair.  She didn't understand
why she couldn't walk and was not happy.  She deteriorated a lot after the
surgery.
She had been a star in assisted living, had a hospitalization and
deteriorated to where
she had to be in an Alzheimers unit.  She had been doing ok there then fell
and broke
both hips.  She died 8 months after the broken hips, in the middle of the
night from
cardiac arrest after recovering from pneumonia.  It was very sad to see the
decline
and poor quality of life.  Medication helped but nowhere near enough.
Looking
back, it was a blessing she went as quickly as she did.

I finally was able to get in a grief group after Mom died and it was a great
help in
being able to remember her as she actually had been.

Joan

"alert and aware enough to follow these directions.  What will
happen now? "

Jan-ed,
I sent you a reply to that question on the thread with the update on
your mom. I thought the same thing about my MIL . Sounds like she was
in very similiar situation to your mother.
Susan