Caregiver with dementia had no support



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Exhausted and devastated after another unsuccessful attempt at short-term respite for her demented husband, Rosemary Cameron felt completely alone.

Staff at the senior care center had threatened to call the police if she did not pick it up, claiming that it was "out of control".

Mrs. Cameron found her with blood on her clothes as a result of a nick in her hand sitting at the breakfast table with other residents.

He was told nothing more than to pack and leave.

"I remember feeling so extremely sad for Don, to be almost rejected when he needed help the most," said Cameron on Monday, annoyed, at the royal commission of Investigation of the elderly.

The sadness was mixed with ignorance from so-called skilled professionals, shame, devastation and total loneliness.

"Getting out of the facility with Don in one hand and his belongings in the other, I jumped into the car and I thought I could not rely on anyone," Ms. Cameron said.

"I do not think there is anything there."

She later discovered that the staff had attacked Mr. Cameron worried after he had taken a chair. He then panicked and threw his arm back, hitting one of the mouth attendants.

An earlier move to another long-term care home of the Victorian era only lasted three days before a nurse ordered urgent admission to a mental health facility because Mr. Cameron " behaved badly.

Ms. Cameron stated that she was struggling to find an institution whose staff understood Lewy body dementia and how to manage it.

"It's pretty upsetting because, you know, Don was not a criminal," she said at a public hearing focused on the needs of family and non-caregivers. paid.

"He did not choose to do that, it was his illness."

Ms. Cameron stated that her husband had been so stunned in a mental health facility that he had been "stunned" while another day she had found him bruised and head against the floor after falling from a chair.

Ms. Cameron stated to have spent about three years under threat of attack and injury due to the constant state of fear and confusion that reigned in her husband, as a result of the onset of paranoia, hallucinations and symptoms of aggression of the disease.

Mr. Cameron has been in full-time care in a specialty care center for mental illness patients in 2016, after almost 11 months of hospitalization.

The couple was inseparable since adolescence.

Mrs. Cameron thought she could take care of the man she loved, the life and the fun.

"However, when exhaustion settled in, I realized that I was not a Superwoman and that without further badistance in home support , casual respite care and professional understanding, I have failed. "

Although Ms. Cameron's story was described as extremely painful, other people taking care of older family members also explained the difficulties in accessing support and services. respite when a three-day hearing began in Mildura, Victoria Region.

Senior litigation badistant commissioner Peter Gray, QC, said there were expert and anecdotal evidence. Respite in a residential care facility in residence was all too often seen as a negative and even risky experience.

Australian Associated Press

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