Behavior Issues Post Cerebral AVM rupture

Hi,

I’m new to this page and hoping to seek some advice.

My mom in Aug 2020 had to do emergency surgery on her AVM that ruptured located on her cerebellum. She had about a 5mm bleed of her posterior fossa of her cerebellum. Then post the hemorrhage she had a global ischemic stroke on her PICA.

Since she’s been home we’ve been dealing with behavorial issues which is now impacting her progress. She’s not motivated and when she’s at therapy they mentioned that she’s been exhibiting “childlike” behavior. That sometimes she would laugh about not participating or she’s treating the whole therapy session as a joke. She’s currently on 150mg of Zoloft. I’m not sure if this common behavior/what to do. And she’s also been trying to manipulate/deflect everyone from helping her. She also closes her eyes a lot when people talk to her to dismiss people. And during her therapy sessions she tries to put her head down and sleep. A few times I’ve noticed she thinks she’s like a kid. And all she wants to do is sleep as well. I’m not sure what would be the next best thing for her if I should look for some sort of Post Acute Brain Injury type of assisted living/supported living. Need some advice, please.

Welcome to our group. I hope we have some members that can pass along some of their experiences that you may find beneficial. There are a some threads that discuss behavior/behaviour if you click on the magnifying glass and search. I’m not sure if there are any similar to what you are describing. I was completely unable to control my emotions for several weeks following my bleed, I would just start crying. I hadn’t cried in years, but had no control at all over it. It slowly subsided for me and disappeared. My AVM was in the left temporal so quite different. Again welcome, John.

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Okay, thanks! This piece of info is just as helpful because I also noticed she’ll randomly start pouting or have lack of control of her emotions.

Hey Sam,
Welcome to Ben’s.
My name is Merl and I’m a member of the Modsupport Team here on Ben’s Friends.
In my former life one of my roles was to make assessments for clients with disabilities, find them the services they needed, then get those services into place, then assess how it was all working for them.
It sounds to me that you may need such a service. I’m in Australia and if you were in Oz I could direct you to exactly to the services, but how the services all work over in the U.S. is way out of my league.

Brain injuries can be a nasty beast, no two are exactly the same. I often say ‘for some they can be minimal, for some they can be catastrophic’, they can strip the person of themselves. Although it can be very difficult for the people around them to comprehend. It can be even more difficult for the patient to come to grips with it all in themselves. I have a brain injury myself and my acceptance of it all is on a bit of a sliding scale. Some days I just accept, but some days I rage against it all.

I’ve done a quick search and found this:
Aging | Texas Health and Human Services
Being that this is a government site I’d like to think they’d have a network of contacts

Now, I want to say here in no way am I making any assumptions regarding you and your mother’s situation, nor whether or not you think outside care maybe needed. But at least if you have ‘some’ information regarding what sorts of services maybe available in your area, you maybe able to start making a plan. There maybe programs for elder care mental health assistance. There could be in-home assistance. There could be day programs and then there could be residential care. These all need to be discussed with someone knowledgeable of the services available in your area so then a care assessment can be made.

I would strongly suggest you sit down and write out a list of questions you, your mother, your family and all other ‘interested parties’ may have, so when you call/make contact, you can get the answers to those questions. In the heat of the moment we get bombarded with information and often we can miss things we want to ask, a list can help.

I’m not going to tell you this is a nice position to be in, it’s not. Organising care for a loved one is never nice. But at least if you have some information you can make an informed decision, rather than be in a position of needing services NOW and having no information at all.

I hope it helps
Merl from the Modsupport Team

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Thanks, yeah I’m hoping to find her a transitional type care where she will have people to teach her to be independent again.

If you don’t mind me asking… How old is your mother??
There maybe differing services available depending on her age.
But then Health and Human Services would be able to establish age relevant services anyway.

Let us know how you get on
Merl from the Modsupport Team