My mum was diagnosed with mixed type dementia about a year ago, and had a care needs assessment which was done by a Social Worker from the memory team. I felt that this was really just the Social Worker producing a report which repeated back what we had told her about the support mum needed at the time, and that the Social Worker hadn’t added anything to the process. As mum has to self fund we had to arrange the care at home that she did need.
The dementia has inevitably progressed and we are now going through the difficult decision of whether it is now time to arrange residential care for mum - she has hallucinations every night which are becoming more distressing for her, problems taking her Parkinson’s medication (even with carers coming in, who she has sometimes refused entry), sometimes she doesn’t recognise her own home and is desperate to leave anyway she can (she hasn’t yet but I feel as if we are just waiting for a disaster to happen), I don’t think she eats properly, struggles with using the phone, oven, mic etc. She lives alone and does have any relatives nearby (I am 2.5 hours away).
So my question really is whether it is worth going through the stress and time taken by a care needs assessment, if they recommend residential care (I have no idea how ‘bad’ things need to be before they would do this) it might make it easier to convince mum this is in her best interests, but if they don’t it would make it more difficult!
Sorry for the ramble, I have so much going round in my head it is difficult to know what to do next. Grateful for any comments or similar experiences.
The dementia has inevitably progressed and we are now going through the difficult decision of whether it is now time to arrange residential care for mum - she has hallucinations every night which are becoming more distressing for her, problems taking her Parkinson’s medication (even with carers coming in, who she has sometimes refused entry), sometimes she doesn’t recognise her own home and is desperate to leave anyway she can (she hasn’t yet but I feel as if we are just waiting for a disaster to happen), I don’t think she eats properly, struggles with using the phone, oven, mic etc. She lives alone and does have any relatives nearby (I am 2.5 hours away).
So my question really is whether it is worth going through the stress and time taken by a care needs assessment, if they recommend residential care (I have no idea how ‘bad’ things need to be before they would do this) it might make it easier to convince mum this is in her best interests, but if they don’t it would make it more difficult!
Sorry for the ramble, I have so much going round in my head it is difficult to know what to do next. Grateful for any comments or similar experiences.