Can carers stop coming if pwd uses carpet as loo?

charlie10

Registered User
Dec 20, 2018
394
0
My husband has just had his weekly conversation with his brother about their dad (undiagnosed, but we suspect vaD, maybe plus Alz). FiL lives on his own, needs a zimmer to move and spends most of his time in his recliner. He has told us that he has a carer to wash his bum cos he can't reach it, and we have also thought that he may have a bit of urge incontinence that he's not owning up to. However BiL has just said that it is more than that and he has poohed on the floor and walked it round the house (apparently unknowingly).....the carers have said they won't come back until the carpets have been cleaned....understandable, but does this mean that they might throw him off their books if this becomes a regular thing (they come once a day at the moment but have also said they need to do twice now).

BiL lives an hour away and can only visit one evening and at the weekend, we are across the world and rely on phone calls with FiL and BiL and try to piece things together......thanks to lurking on TP this news is not the big shock it might otherwise have been. Sorry if I haven't given enough info, trying to get this out while people are still up....hope you all get a good night's sleep, you are all amazing people!

PS any suggestion for 'non-scratchy' pull-ups? Thank you x
 

myss

Registered User
Jan 14, 2018
449
0
Hi @charlie10 Welcome to the forum.

I haven't got a definitive answer to your query but I suspect it may be down to the carer/their management whether they will take your dad off their books if the house is appropriate for them/their carer to go to work in. I can add that my dad is incontinent and has peed on the carpets now and again but his carer hasn't mentioned anything like that.

I was about to add that a carer experienced with dementia patients would have expected such things to happen but I note that your FIL has not yet been diagnosed. Health & safety reasons aside, this may be why the carer gave that ultimatum. Take some comfort at least they didn't say they are not willing to come back, they will come back once the carpet is cleaned, which seems fair enough.

As for the non-scratchy pull-ups, tena pull-ups seem to agree with most who have to wear them, including my dad.
 

charlie10

Registered User
Dec 20, 2018
394
0
thank you for the reply and the welcome @myss......although we knew this might happen in the future, it has caught us a bit by surprise because he sounds so lucid on the phone.....very few signs of forgetfulness/repeating or really anything untoward for someone of 90. Hopefully BiL is arranging a GP visit with him and they will also explore a possible physical cause.....and maybe the GP might decide to send him for 'memory' testing and also consider him for depression (I think a mild anti-depressant might help him a lot then he could be assessed better). His physical signs (weak muscles, poor mobility, incontinence) don't seem to 'match' what we hear over the phone, so we're a bit confused.....mild cognitive impairment or midstage dementia?? We need some medical input, but can't do anything except research and encourage from our end :(
 

LadyA

Registered User
Oct 19, 2009
13,730
0
Ireland
thank you for the reply and the welcome @myss......although we knew this might happen in the future, it has caught us a bit by surprise because he sounds so lucid on the phone.....very few signs of forgetfulness/repeating or really anything untoward for someone of 90. Hopefully BiL is arranging a GP visit with him and they will also explore a possible physical cause.....and maybe the GP might decide to send him for 'memory' testing and also consider him for depression (I think a mild anti-depressant might help him a lot then he could be assessed better). His physical signs (weak muscles, poor mobility, incontinence) don't seem to 'match' what we hear over the phone, so we're a bit confused.....mild cognitive impairment or midstage dementia?? We need some medical input, but can't do anything except research and encourage from our end :(
My husband's dementia was such that for years, his memory didn't appear too bad. It was more behaviour & personality changes, which crept in gradually that were ringing alarm bells. However, after several years, I did notice that his memory wasn't as good as it appeared on the surface. He was a master of hiding his symptoms. He was very adept at making neutral answers so it wasn't immediately apparent that he wasn't actually answering what he was asked. He also became adept at leading the conversation - comandeering it even - so that only subjects he knew and could still talk about were brought up. That way, he could chat away, and nobody realised what he was actually doing. Even I was left stunned one day when, after chatting with an old friend (someone he'd known for at least 18 or so years), in the street, and my husband was apparently delighted to see him - "Hey! Great to see you again! How are you doing?" etc. - as we walked away after about 20 minutes, he said to me "Now, who was that? I'm sure I should know him."! :eek: He had held a long, animated conversation with the guy, with much friendly back-slapping chat - and even I hadn't realised that he hadn't a clue who he was talking to! And I was living with him. It took a long time, and was a slow learning process, before I learned to "read" when he had forgotten something, or when he no longer knew something. Because, sometimes, you just don't know. The number of times I had calls from people saying "You didn't call me back. I left a message with your husband." or, if he DID remember that someone called, I'd get "Someone called. They said you should ring them." And I'd go "Ok. Did they leave a name?" "No. I didn't ask them. I thought you'd know!" :rolleyes:
 

SewHappy

Registered User
Feb 3, 2019
29
0
I'm new to TP and my mum is the PWD. Until last year she lived at home with my stepfather who was a hoarder. Between mum and my stepfather housework was a couldn't and wouldn't issue and stepfather wouldn't let anyone else do it either. Between them the house got very cluttered and very filthy. Stepfather had a diabetic hypo and mum remembered enough to call an ambulance. Paramedic raised state of house as a safeguarding issue and all hell broke loose but it was great, but busy, for me as it felt I had allies in getting proper care for mum. Met Social Services at the house and they said it would have to be cleared and cleaned as carers were needed, were entitled to a safe working space and could not attend in condition house was in. Stepfather went nuts about a man's home being his castle, threatened to blow the place up and generally not co-operate. Social Services threatened to get Court Orders (not sure on what basis) to get the place sorted out for the proper protection of mum. Stepfather co-operated with care plan but then had an unrelated fall and died. Mum now safe and settled in a lovely care home close to me.
 

kindred

Registered User
Apr 8, 2018
2,937
0
I'm new to TP and my mum is the PWD. Until last year she lived at home with my stepfather who was a hoarder. Between mum and my stepfather housework was a couldn't and wouldn't issue and stepfather wouldn't let anyone else do it either. Between them the house got very cluttered and very filthy. Stepfather had a diabetic hypo and mum remembered enough to call an ambulance. Paramedic raised state of house as a safeguarding issue and all hell broke loose but it was great, but busy, for me as it felt I had allies in getting proper care for mum. Met Social Services at the house and they said it would have to be cleared and cleaned as carers were needed, were entitled to a safe working space and could not attend in condition house was in. Stepfather went nuts about a man's home being his castle, threatened to blow the place up and generally not co-operate. Social Services threatened to get Court Orders (not sure on what basis) to get the place sorted out for the proper protection of mum. Stepfather co-operated with care plan but then had an unrelated fall and died. Mum now safe and settled in a lovely care home close to me.
Oh sweetheart, thank goodness she is safe now. What a time you have been through. All sympathy and welcome here. Kindred.
 

canary

Registered User
Feb 25, 2014
25,018
0
South coast
His physical signs (weak muscles, poor mobility, incontinence) don't seem to 'match' what we hear over the phone, so we're a bit confused.....mild cognitive impairment or midstage dementia??
People with dementia are experts at hiding their symptoms (the well known on here "host" mode). I used to talk to my mum on the phone most days and go round and see her (although I only used to stay for an hour or so) and I didnt have an inkling that there was anything wrong until she suddenly phoned me and said that a very dear friend of hers was stealing from her. I really couldnt believe that, but got her to stay with me for the weekend. It was a huge eye opener as she could not maintain the semblance of normality. I saw her constantly changing moods, the way she kept contradicting herself and saying the complete opposite of something she had said only minutes previously (and then denying it). I saw the way she got confused over her medication, that she was becoming incontinent and (worst for me) that she was up and coming in to wake me up every half an hour all through the night because there were "noises in the kitchen" (there were none). My mum had reached mid-stage dementia and I had had no idea :eek: