Question

Mary-Lou is a 75-year-old widow, who lost her husband to cancer over a year ago. Her family and friends have noticed that she has been very teary, has low self-esteem and has lost interest in the things she used to love such as going to bingo with her friends and gardening. Her family initially put this down to the loss of her husband and thought it would pass with time. However, they are now getting really concerned as they have noticed that her mood is not improving still. When asked by her daughter if she is sleeping well, she says she has been drinking wine every night to help her go to sleep. It makes her feel happy and relaxed. What started as one glass a night has now increased to two or three glasses a night, and she has also started drinking during the day. Her daughter has noticed that her mum’s face always appears flushed and that she has had quite a few colds lately. Mary-Lou is also losing her balance and experiencing mood swings. Her daughter is worried that she is relying too heavily on alcohol and fears that she is starting to get short-term memory loss from the alcohol consumption. She has been forgetting things such as where she put her keys, whether she turned on the washing machine, why she opened the fridge and forgetting the topic of conversation when talking with her daughter on the phone. Mary-Lou has also been getting disorientated and getting lost when she goes out on her daily walks. A neighbor rang her daughter one day to tell her that she found Mary-Lou wandering around aimlessly, and when questioned what she was doing Mary-Lou snapped and said she was trying to get home. Her daughter decided it was time to take Mary-Lou to the local GP to work out what was going on with her. After listening to the signs and symptoms Mary-Lou was experiencing, the GP diagnosed her with depression and prescribed 50 mg of Fluoxetine/Prozac daily. Based on the results of clinical and radiological assessments, the GP determined that she had early onset Alzheimer’s disease. He prescribed a cholinesterase inhibitor and gave them information on support groups and tips on what to do from here on in. He also prescribed 10 mg of Diazepam daily to help with the withdrawals from alcohol abuse.

Question 4: Based on her clinical picture and history, explain if Mary-Lou suffers from alcohol addiction. Support your answer with relevant evidence from the case study.

Answer 1

From the clinical picture and history it is clear that Mary-Lou suffers from alcohol addiction.The lose of her husband might have given her a shock of loneliness and unsecurity.She might be very sad on the demise of her husband and thinking of him the whole day.To overcome these frustrations she might have started drinking alcohol and she has revealed this to her daughter.She also said that she has started drinking in day too.The main symptoms of alcohol addiction that are :

• Short term memory lose
• Mood swings
• Not able to sleep properly
• Withdrawing themselves from what they were doing normally
• Isolating from friends and family.
• Become aggressive suddenly and Without any reason.

These all symptoms are visible in Mary-Lou and supports the fact that she is addicted to alcohol.Her mood swinging, gradually increasing the amount of alcohol and drinking alcohol whole day and night,flushing,forgetting the daily activities,disorientation in conversation,wandering aimlessly,snapping the neighbor etc are symptoms of her alcohol addiction.