What to do when your mum is in mental health hospital but not getting better?

Hi @Daughter74

Welcome to the forums, and thank you for your post.

I am so sorry to hear about your mother, it sounds like a really distressing situation for you to be in, to see your mother like she is.

You have come to the right place to get support from others who may have experienced similar things that you are currently going through.

Have you had any support from a carers support program? @Alessandra1992 may be able to give you some advice on how to get access to some support for yourself while you support your mother.

Welcome again!

Outlanderali

Dear @Daughter74I have 2 different things to share. Not an opinion .. your circumstances are unique to you and your mum.

My mother had ECT in the 60s and even though it was a lot more haphazard treatment than ECT today ... she said she was glad she had it as it shook her out of her depression.

I actually had periods in my life where I wondered about aimlessly and not able to be very coherent.

The best thing for me was to dig in and discover what it was like to have my own home.

If I think about the best attitudes for me then ... would have been be gentle and calm and not to react with too much shock ... but we are what we are and in close relationships its not always a matter of self-control.

Those periods were in my 40s ... since then I have gradually come good .. but it was very gradual... took about 10 years.

Sometimes it can be a good idea for her to take up a hobby that she used to love ... eg knitting anything ... in which she has old habits and skills that may come to the fore and give her more confidence.

Hello Daughter74.

My Mum is in a somewhat similar situation and I totally understand what you mean when you say it's distressing. Sometimes my sister and I get so upset about it we cant even answer her calls somedays.

Mum had about 20 treatments last year (after several past rounds of ECT) and it messed her up so bad she thought it was 20 years ago and that the hospital was her workplace (she was a nurse). We had to put our foot down and say no more to the doctor who insisted that ECT was the way forward (he's a cretinous, egotisitical, borderline negligent pr^ck). Her memory and cognitive functioning had been slowly deterioritating over the past few years but that tipped her way over the edge.

Is your Mum having ultra brief ECT? Mum was originally having right unilateral ECT which destroyed her brain, but the ultra brief seemed to be less invasive. After ECT was done Mum had a series of neuropsychological tests to see if she had dementia and it was determined she did not. The docs decided that her memory issues were a symptom of the depression - but tbh with the amount of meds Mum has been on for 15 years (it's outrageous) it's difficult to believe that hasnt been a contributing factor.

I wanted to ask for you to elaborate on what you meant by "deem" she has dementia?

Now Mum's having TMS treatment and while it hasnt been 100% effective it's definitely been less disastrous than the ECT.

So there are a couple of things you could do to help your Mum:

1- Ask what type of ECT shes having and do a bit of research

2- Ask if there is an option for TMS

3- Ask if she can have a neuropsychological assessment (one of these was $1200 mind you).

4- Ask for a list of what medications your Mum is on

5- Dont be afraid to ask for a second opinion once your Mum is out of hospital.

Hope this information can be helpful and I'd be grateful to hear more about your journey, and if it helps you share more of mine.

Has your Mum had an MRI or blood tests for things like Hypothyroidism?

No problems, it has taken us years to learn how to, and the need to, ask questions. You could try asking to speak to the Nurse Unit Manager in her ward to get the lowdown on the treatment- doctors are notoriously hard to pin down.

Either way it is 100% your right to ask for this information and usually theyll be more than glad to share it! Especially at this time when your Mum isnt at her best. Don't let a cranky looking nurse tell you shes too busy - sometimes they need a reminder of how hard it is for family memmbers to understand the complexities of mental illness.

TMS - I don't know an indepth amount about TMS but it's a relatively new form of treatment that uses magnets instead of electricity to stimualte the brain. You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation. Depending on where your Mum is (Im in Sydney) she may be able to find a clinic that offers it, although of course I dont know her situation so it may not be suitable but worht looking into!

We went years before we felt confident enough to question Mum's treatment - it's such a minefield navigating the mental health system, doctors egos, and then of course interfering in a loved ones medical treatment can be precarious! But by the sounds of it its totally appropriate for you to step in and find out as much as you can about your Mum's treatment and also about community support. I wish we'd done so much earlier.

How long has she been sick for? Do you have a support network around you? Was she having cognitive functioning issues before the ECT at all?

Hi Daughter74,

I hope your holding up alright.

Is your mum currently taking any thyroid medication?

Is there a reason why the doctor/s don't thing the Psychiatric and Cognitive symptoms are due to her thyroid condition as as you probably already know they can cause these types of symptoms?

Regarding possible Dementia-a person can still have Dementia even if their MRI is normal and also even if their Neuropsychological testing is reported as normal because the reporting of Neuropsychological tests can differ according to who the Neuropsychologist was who did the testing.

PET scans (using FDG) can show if a person has Dementia when they have had a normal MRI result but its not very easy to get a brain PET scan ordered in Australia and you would really have to be persistant and demand or "beg" it of the doctor.

Do you know if there is a Neuropsychiatrist in the hospital where your mom is at as it seems that would be of more help to her than a "normal psychiatrist" as often Psychiatrists can get tunnel vision and only diagnose with the DSM and forget all the other "physical" illnesses that can also cause Psychiatric symptoms?

If you dont mind the question,are you able to elaborate on what your mothers speech symptoms are?

Does she also have any movement/motor symptoms or anything else?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21152840

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jtr/2012/590648/

Do you know if the MRI's had any abnormalities or did they come back normal?

Do you have the report and what it says on it?

Has there been any mention of the possibility of your mum potentially having Picks Disease or Transcortical sensory aphasia as both can cause Echolalia and the second doesn't always show on a MRI (depending on the cause).

Would you know how your mum ended up being admitted in the Pyschiatric unit as opposed to a different unit-Ie:does she also have Depression,personality changes or other Psychiatric symptoms or was it purely due to her Echolalia that they presumed it was some form of Schizophrenia/psychosis?

Does your mum have any other illnesses apart from the Hypothyroidism and do you know her blood pressure levels?

If you dont mind the questions,is your mum able to follow basic commands such as point to the celing and is she able to follow more complex commands like rapidly making a fist edge palm (three steps)and doing it fast?

If you give her a piece of paper to write on is able to express her thoughts that way or is rather that she is devoid of thoughts?

Sane forums doesn't allow posters to state any doctors or therapists names so i can't state any unfortunately but maybe by contacting the Aphasia asociations (linked below) they could point you to someone in your area/state experienced in diagnosing Aphasia and a Speech pathologist who understands aphasia and apraxia of speech?

http://www.aphasia.org.au/aphasia/aphasia-contact/

http://www.aphasiapathway.com.au/?name=assessment-by-a-speech-pathologist