Exactly. It could be, that his family has known something was wrong but he has refused to cooperate until now. Can you even do an assessment like that without the patient cooperating?
Yes and no. Strictly speaking you can't subject someone who is
still considered of sound mindto an examination against their will. But there are ways around that, especially if the person really is suffering from dementia. You can "persuade" the person in question to undergo an examination or to give his/her consent to something. Even though that person may not fully understand what it is. It's simply a matter of how you present the issue. It happens all the time - quietly and simply out of necessity.
You may say that the patient is tricked into something, but it inevitably happens with the understanding of the relatives.
And once the diagnosis is there, saying Dementia, the courts will turn a blind eye. Keep in mind that people suffering from Dementia are not automatically declared unable to look after themselves. It takes a while, years perhaps. In the meantime they need care. It may be help to buy groceries, for that the caretaker needs money from the client and that can't be done without the consent of the client... so out of necessity...
I'm not sure about Denmark, but in Australia, if family or medical practitioners believe there is just-cause for a mental health assessment, one can be performed without the consent of the patient. It all comes down to if the person is exhibiting behaviours that can cause themselves, or others harm. His outburst regarding his being King consort, his burial wishes etc wouldn't be enough. I believe other incidents have occurred for an assessment to be conducted.
The law in DK is very similar. But as I wrote above, there are ways around it.
I do not believe a man who is as proud as PH would willingly undergo a "head-examination". So somehow PH has been "persuaded" to undergo the examination. Whether he fully understood what kind of examination he was going through is another matter. He has also given his consent to undergo that examination - or more correctly - he could have refused to have undergone the examination the "doctor found medically prudent" to subject him to. - After all how many of us will refuse if our GP send us to the hospital to undergo "a routine-check"? I won't, I generally trust my doctors.
What happens next, if it hasn't already happened, is that PH will be subjected to a "visitation". Where he will quietly be assessed to ascertain the extent of his dementia. Especially whether he is able to look after himself and what help he needs from the local municipality. (that's not relevant in PH's case. But it's relevant for those healthcare people who already look after him.
After a while a visitation will determine that he is now unable to properly look after himself and it will be recommended to put him first in a "protected housing", followed by a nursing home.
By then the dementia will have progressed to the level that PH is likely to be considered unable to look after his own interests. The judge will take that report into consideration and rule PH unable to look after himself and appoint a guardian, most likely QMII, but it could be Frederik or Joachim as well.
By this time PH will be living in his own private nursing home in one of the palaces.
- And from then on it's only a matter of time...
Towards the end he is likely to revert to a stage of childhood and around the same time he will be very sensitive to being touched. (It's very unpleasant for him!) And he will no longer have a clue as to who it is who is around him, he is likely to recognize them, but he cannot comprehend the connection.
Dementia has different ways to go so to speak.
PH is in the stage where is reacting against the outside. In this case venting an anger and frustration towards QMII.
The next stage is where he is unable to distinguish time-periods and when he is talking he will be mixing up people and events from say the 60's with events in the 90's.
Later on he may begin to wander at night. It's pretty odd, but they tend to pace up and down the floor and corridors at night, always at night.
It's also around this time they tend to "run away". Not necessarily to escape from anything, but because they want to "go home". In PH's case that may be Indochina. Because that may be where he has the best and most fond memories.
At some point he may reverse his personality. Say a person who has always been shy may suddenly curse worse than any sailor or become something of an exhibitionist! (If that happens that will be around the time his younger grandchildren will stop visiting him, for obvious reasons.) Or a socially outgoing person may become very introvert.
And that brings us to one of the least mentioned aspects of Alzheimer: Sexual drive. Fortunately PH hasn't got a daughter, otherwise he could enter the stage where she becomes the focus for his sexual desires, simply because she physically reminds him of his wife, when she was younger. Many family-members have big problems handling that! Both sons and daughters.
He may also lose any comprehension of where he is and why. I have personally heard an Alzheimer client cry for help for hours, day after day. Because he did not understand where he was. Someone had put him in a room and left him there! Imagine you had been kidnapped, you would cry for help as well.
Others quietly go more and more blank. There must be some "pavlov-effect" still going on though. Because place them on a toilet-stool and things happen instantly!
One of the more heartbreaking conditions is where they are scared. They are scared when they leave their room to say eat. They don't know where they are, what they are supposed to do. They don't understand their surroundings and what people do. Imagine yourself as say an American suddenly finding yourself in downtown Calcutta. Somehow you know you are supposed to be there, but you don't understand anything. That's when they pitifully tell you they are scared and they
are scared! So you calmly guide them to wherever they are supposed to go. And you can literally feel them relaxing.
At the very end the brain can no longer interpret and process sensory input. Especially sound and nerve endings become affected.
The brain apparently has a tendency to interpret nerve-inputs it cannot comprehend as pain.
- My wife works at a nursing home, she is not working with the clients living there, but clients still living in their own homes. But her office is there and since the majority of clients at the nursing home suffer from various stages of dementia I've met many dementia cases over the years, talked to them and sometimes helped them.
Having to "Go Public" must have been a tough decision. Henrik's public behaviour must have been a nightmare but I think the family were in denial as well. To me that is the only explanation for his unrestrained outbursts and especially his horrendous railing at his wife.
revious
