Desperate for help and guidance

[Caeridwen]

Hello All,

Please can I have some guidance on how we have our Nan taken into a home. She is currently living on her own, is not compliant with her medication, we have not seen a social worker in almost 2 years, we are lucky if she is assessed once a year by the mental health team let alone every 6 months, and when they do she deflects the questions and avoids answering and they say she is fine and doing well. The reality is so different...she can act so lucid when anyone medical is around and they take the face value.

The reality is she is destroying my in-laws life (they are both retired and not in the best of health). She calls them on the phone constantly, and if she does not get what she wants she starts harassing other family members over the phone. My father in law is having to go to her house up to 4 times a day to sort out issues, and he himself is desperately unwell. She no longer recognises most of the family and when she forgets who my mother in law is she becomes violent like nothing you have ever seen before...She is a tiny spit of a woman and the last time it took 6 security guards in the hospital to get her under control.

They are at the end of their endurance and we need help...urgently. We have no idea what the process is to have her placed in a home where she can be looked after properly. we do not know who to contact and cannot rely on the medical fraternity (very sad to admit as I myself work as a paramedic). The difficulty is that our nan can be very manipulative and although she can appear lucid she is not...people just do not seem to get how dementia works

Our nan is not really able to look after herself anymore, she is unable to clean for herself, she has forgotten how to use the cooker so lives on yoghurt, toast, sandwiches and ready cooked chicken. She does not take her medicine as she should, she feigns illness or injury to get us to go up there several times a day, she phones my in laws constantly, she refuses to accept any help in the house as she says that cleaning services steal and makes all sorts of wild accusations. she is unkempt and does not keep herself as she used to, if challenged in any way shape of form she becomes verbally or physically vicious...my in laws now plan their life to avoid, her so they arrange to be out on days she is in and on the days she goes to her clubs they have as days off (unless she feigns illness and does not go)

this cannot go on...I am watching her slowly kill my in laws...HELP PLEASE!!!!!

 

[CollegeGirl]

Hi Caeridwen and welcome. I'm sure others will be along very shortly, but in the meantime all that springs to my mind in the first instance is that your in-laws could contact social services and tell them the true situation and that they are withdrawing all care from your nan and are now handing that responsibility over to them.

And then do it. Stop answering the phone, stop going round. If she tells you/your in laws that she is ill or injured, call an ambulance out to her house each time. If you are a paramedic you will know what reports are sent out to various bodies (GP etc?) when an ambulance is called - I don't know myself but assume it will generate paperwork that will be looked at by someone?

You will read on here over and over that no-one can be forced to care for another adult, that it is social services who have a duty of care towards the person, not their family or friends and neighbours.

I know this sounds incredibly harsh and I personally have never done this, but I think it may be the only way, in the circumstances you describe.

Unless anyone else has more knowledge and wisdom than me? Hang on in there, they will be here soon xx

 

[AlsoConfused]

Welcome from me too.

You've said how urgent the situation is because of the serious damage your Nan is doing to your in-laws health. Perhaps you are too near crisis point for there to be any alternative to notifying Social Services Nan is extremely vulnerable and the carers (all the family) are withdrawing care as from date X.

It may not be too late to remind SS and her mental health team of some of the key evidence about your Nan's unfitness to live on her own. The hospital would have kept notes of your Nan's condition and unmanageability that time it took 6 security guards to "manage" her. There may be other instances when the ambulance or police were called because of a violent incident. Document everything you can (especially everything evidenced by the police, ambulance service, hospital(s) and neighbours. Pass your information on to Social Services and be prepared to hassle them until they act.

Has her mental health team done a recent assessment of your Nan's capacity? Is she regarded as having capacity?

 

[Caeridwen]

Welcome from me too.

You've said how urgent the situation is because of the serious damage your Nan is doing to your in-laws health. Perhaps you are too near crisis point for there to be any alternative to notifying Social Services Nan is extremely vulnerable and the carers (all the family) are withdrawing care as from date X.

It may not be too late to remind SS and her mental health team of some of the key evidence about your Nan's unfitness to live on her own. The hospital would have kept notes of your Nan's condition and unmanageability that time it took 6 security guards to "manage" her. There may be other instances when the ambulance or police were called because of a violent incident. Document everything you can (especially everything evidenced by the police, ambulance service, hospital(s) and neighbours. Pass your information on to Social Services and be prepared to hassle them until they act.

Has her mental health team done a recent assessment of your Nan's capacity? Is she regarded as having capacity?

apart from asking her the same questions they ask every time, which she avoids answering and then tallying up some fictional score only to tell us she is doing so well and is not deteriorating, as to capacity..no no recent assessment, the problem is she is so crafty about that, she suspects everyone is trying to steal her things and her money, so she can appear lucid and manipulate answers to appear resonable, like when they ask what year it is, she simply replies, why should I know they at my age, If I have to know I will look it up on my calendar, and they take that as a reasonable answer. If you try to ell them anything she accuses you of lying, I know capacity is a really difficult thing, I am guessing we will just have to wait until she gets herself a taxi to the shops and then attacks the taxi driver for kidnapping her or something like that, so that they have no choice but to section her...

 

[AlsoConfused]

You're obviously very dissatisfied with the standard of medical care / support given to your Nan.

If (big if, I know!) your Nan's ever authorised her GP and mental health team to discuss her condition with anyone else in the family, then in your shoes I'd be asking for a second opinion ASAP. I'd quote back at the health professionals the comments from objective sources (the hospital, her day care centre, etc) which prove that a full medical review and a full reassessment of her capacity is urgently needed.

I felt it was Mum's stay in an assessment centre - after she'd been violent - that made Mum a priority case and got us a lot more co-operation and involvement from regional community and hospital staff.