Mum has been living with my wife and I (and my step children when not at Uni) for almost eighteen months now. My younger brother and I have LPA and decided it was time to sell her flat and build a "custom built for mum" granny annex on the back of my house which will be of little use when it is not needed.
Whilst it was being built Mum lived in our sitting room and we huddled into our dining room of an evening. Her annex has a sitting room, bedroom and bathroom with her beloved UK Gold TV and You tube so I can play the classic British comedies she loves/loved; everything she needs.
My wife is my second wife and in our seven years together has never really seen the mum that brought me and my brother up (in hindsight dementia has been a gradual process with mum) My wife cooks, cleans, takes mum to her clubs and appointments, she is an absolute star, but mum treats her like dirt then tells others (particularly family) how horrible and what a trouble maker my wife is.
At first we tried the gentle treat like a child approach with mum but that got us nowhere and inclined to make mum try to do less for herself so now it is firm and direct which seems to work better. We get no help from my brother or his wife unless we ask and even then it is only for a few hours, I do what I can when I'm not at work, and we have paid carers come in five evenings a week to get mum ready for bed (it was getting too difficult, mentally and physically for my wife)
Just the other night we checked the safety camera after hearing a noise, mum had got out of bed, taken off her knicker/pads and was walking about her annex calling for one of my sons (who all live out of the area) We went downstairs, into the annex and coaxed her back to her bedroom. My wife got her a clean pair of pads and as I looked in her bathroom there was urine all over the floor, I cleaned it all up, disinfected it, then spoke very sternly to mum to keep the pads on and go to sleep. Her response was "so that's alright for her to talk to me like that?" it was me that had told her off!
My wife saw both her parents die as a result of illnesses brought on by dementia & parkinsons so she is no stranger to it (unlike me) she is now at breaking point. It isn't even her own mother or a person that has ever been nice to her, having spent all that money on the annex I think we are getting close to needing her to go into a home although my brother disagrees as he co-agreed to release the funds to build it but he doesn't have to go through what we have to, particularly my wonderful wife.
Whilst it was being built Mum lived in our sitting room and we huddled into our dining room of an evening. Her annex has a sitting room, bedroom and bathroom with her beloved UK Gold TV and You tube so I can play the classic British comedies she loves/loved; everything she needs.
My wife is my second wife and in our seven years together has never really seen the mum that brought me and my brother up (in hindsight dementia has been a gradual process with mum) My wife cooks, cleans, takes mum to her clubs and appointments, she is an absolute star, but mum treats her like dirt then tells others (particularly family) how horrible and what a trouble maker my wife is.
At first we tried the gentle treat like a child approach with mum but that got us nowhere and inclined to make mum try to do less for herself so now it is firm and direct which seems to work better. We get no help from my brother or his wife unless we ask and even then it is only for a few hours, I do what I can when I'm not at work, and we have paid carers come in five evenings a week to get mum ready for bed (it was getting too difficult, mentally and physically for my wife)
Just the other night we checked the safety camera after hearing a noise, mum had got out of bed, taken off her knicker/pads and was walking about her annex calling for one of my sons (who all live out of the area) We went downstairs, into the annex and coaxed her back to her bedroom. My wife got her a clean pair of pads and as I looked in her bathroom there was urine all over the floor, I cleaned it all up, disinfected it, then spoke very sternly to mum to keep the pads on and go to sleep. Her response was "so that's alright for her to talk to me like that?" it was me that had told her off!
My wife saw both her parents die as a result of illnesses brought on by dementia & parkinsons so she is no stranger to it (unlike me) she is now at breaking point. It isn't even her own mother or a person that has ever been nice to her, having spent all that money on the annex I think we are getting close to needing her to go into a home although my brother disagrees as he co-agreed to release the funds to build it but he doesn't have to go through what we have to, particularly my wonderful wife.