Her doctor knows this and won't give her anymore medicine. She just came home from 6 months in a nursing home w/no physical activity. She's giving her home health aides a hard time and screaming at me. Her doctor will not prescribe anymore psychic drugs.
Try to learn everything possible about this horrible disease, and then learn more. Go to the blue bar near the top of the page and click on SENIOR LIVING..... now click on Alzheimer's Care... scroll down to all the various article. Knowledge is your best defense.
Yes, the fear of falling, that is so very real. After my fall in a parking lot and getting injured, I now am afraid I might fall down the stairs, so now I understand that aspect. Good that your mother uses her walker, so many refuse or forget to do so. Hopefully she won't start using falling as an attention getter.
It's a tough issue, how to shift out what is real and what is just high drama looking for attention. One can only cry wolf so many times. Don't forget, the Alzheimer's/Dementia.
My mother has bipolar and some cluster B disorders on top of dementia, and acted like you describe your mom. It is possible to set things right so she is safe, in a stable environment, and can't manipulate people through loud meanness.
Getting a geriatric psychiatrist involved will make ALL the difference in the world. Depakote may not be quite right for her, and there are other choices that can be tried to turn the intensity down a few notches. It goes much easier if she is in a place that is serviced by the doctors than having to get her to appointments, for what it's worth.
Nobody really talks about that aspect of a residential facility, that getting the care to the resistant person is much easier that way and saves everybody a metric ton of stress. They don't have a choice about seeing the doctor.
When my mom was in a nh for rehab for about 6 weeks, there was some other resident there, in another room, who was always screaming 'get me out of here'. I have no clue who they were or what any backstory was but it did not get any attention. And I never saw anyone in that room visiting.
Some families won't approve the use of medication and I can't for the life of me understand why. Eventually the original behaviors of mental illness "BD" - before dementia - mesh into true dementia behaviors and it doesn't matter that there was mental illness there before.
If my mom doesn't get her Risparidone, there will be holy you-know-what to pay by anybody who dares enter her room that day.
Medicaid will pay for rehab after a qualifying hospital stay, and there are other conditions that have to be met, like cooperating with PT and making improvements on schedule. If the patient refuses to comply with treatment and isn't making progress, rehab is o-v-e-r.
If her screaming is in an early-moderate dementia state, then yes, turn around and leave when it starts. I would never do that to a baby, but I've done it with my mother a million times. I will stay when you talk nice. I will go when you don't. Sometimes you could hear her down in the dining room, hollering about this & that at the top of her lungs. Yep, that one's mine!
If she's in moderate-severe state, she won't understand "if...then". She really needs a good psych at that point and the right meds to remain calm. Agitation is not good for someone physically or mentally.