For someone with dementia, mom is still pretty cognizant a lot of the time. I’m starting to wonder if she will die from the COPD first. She’s in the hospital after boing booted from memory care for aggression. (It blows my mind that someone so tiny and frail could cause so much trouble).
She would never share her medical info with me in the past but now I’m her healthcare proxy and it’s eye opening. In the hospital they have her on oxygen. Her levels hover around 90 but dip into the high 80s. She doesn’t keep the cannula on. Ever. She gets a headache every afternoon. She gets out of breath getting back into bed.
Does anyone have experience with this? I’m wondering if she’s nearing end stage COPD. How long might she have? Will this get her before the dementia does?
She’s childlike but still relatively cogent much of the time. I’m starting to think that her confusion might be from low oxygen as much as from dementia.