i don't know what to do

[Carobby]

My mum fell 3 weeks ago and fractured her hip. she has had an op and it has been pinned.
Her mobility is not good she has has physio and now walks in pain and with a frame a short distance.
the hospital say she is fit for discharge but i have said she cannot come back home until she can climb the stairs. i also ask for her to be assessed fo CHC. this was done but they said she did not met the criteria for funding. Today IDT hastily practiced the stairs when i spoke to them they said she needed a lot of prompting to go up the stairs they only did four steps with someone behind her. they told me they would be recommending care downstairs but i have said this is not an option. its as if they are trying to push her out of hospital i have asked about rehab but they have said this is not an option because of her cognition is so poor. I don't know what to to i dont want her home if she cannot go up stairs but i feel they are not listening to me. I am a nurse and feel that they are just expecting me to give up the little work i do to be with her 24 hors a day. has any one else been in this position can any one offer advice/

 

[Kevinl]

What do you want to happen? Obviously she can't stay in hospital and I take it (from the way you phrase it) that she lives with you?
If you want to go down the care home route then will she be self funding or will the LA be funding?
There's a thread on the link below about the fight someone had as a self funder wanting to put MIL in a care home and social services didn't, it's a bit of an eye opener.
K
https://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/thr...are-choices-battle-with-social-worker.116486/

 

[Sam Luvit]

No one can force you to care for anyone. You might want to remind ASC (Adult Social Care), that the “duty of care rests with them”

If you are comfortable with it, providing a little more information will enable people to give you more relevant suggestions

Does your mum live with you in your home, or do you live with her in her home, are her savings over the limit making her self funding? As @Kevinl says, what do you want as an outcome .. care home or rehab etc ?

 

[Sam Luvit]

Duplicate post

 

[charlie10]

Hi @Carobby......my FiL broke his hip in January, spent 4 weeks in hospital as he also developed delirium and pneumonia. For most of his hospital stay he spent his time in a chair or in bed (for a while he was so weak he had to be propped upright with pillows). The physios managed to get him to the point of standing and taking a couple of steps (with a zimmer) by the time he was discharged. We requested for him to go to a rehab unit before he went home, as he lives alone with no near family. He spent 3 weeks in the unit and with a lot of encouragement his walking picked up a bit. He's been back home for about 3 months, still on his own with one care visit in the morning for washing/dressing. The rest of the time he is on his own....10 steps to the kitchen to heat his dinner/make coffee etc.,otherwise spends his time in his chair. But he has improved a bit to the extent that he can, with help, get down his 3 front door steps and into a wheelchair for a trip to the local shop.

What I'm trying to say, in a long-winded way, is that if he hadn't had the rehab I'm certain he would have needed more care visits and may have been bedbound as he is not motivated to push himself to improve his walking....it was the staff at rehab coaxing/ordeing him to pracise that did it. Has your mum been offered any further rehab? If not,maybe you could push for it.....there are others on the forum who are probably more knowledgeable about what her entitlements are for rehab

PS have you thought about a stair lift? Obviously not appropriate if she lives on her own, but if she lives with you to supervise her.....?

 

[Jessbow]

People with dementia are often refused rehab, quite simply because they dont have the ability to take on board what they need to do to rehabilitate themselves ( learn what is required if you like)

Is time to recuperate in a nursing home an option- if she's been in hospital 3 weeks, she's needing to be discharged I would have thought.

 

[fortune]

I've just been through an almost identical scenario with my mum. It may be that the time has come to step back and look at the wider situation. The outcome for us was that mum has had to go into residential care. This was not obvious to me at the time. I thought well she'll recover from the operation and then she'll come home and we'll manage somehow, as we always have. But then it became (slowly) obvious that was not practical. It's the hardest decision, nobody is happy, but dementia forces these horrible dilemmas on to us.

 

[Duggies-girl]

@Carobby Dad had pneumonia in February this year and had 3 weeks in hospital. Two weeks were spent in rehab as he was unable to walk. They got him walking with a zimmer frame assisted by someone. We got him discharged in the end because he had 3 falls in hospital and to be honest if we had not insisted on him coming home then I don't think he would have fot out alive. The staff just didn't have the time (or understanding in my experience) to keep my very confused dad safe.

He has been home 4 months now and has greatly improved. He is getting around really well with his frame in his home but we take a wheelchair for hospital appointments.

He has no stairs and even if he did, I don't think that he could ever manage to climb them. Even the back door step is an obstacle.

If he has another incident then I think it will be a care home.

 

[RosettaT]

My OH was refused rehab initially because they said he had dementia and wouldn't be able to take instruction. Together with a very good SW we managed to persuade them he could. After 3weeks in rehab I spat the dummy as they hadn't done anything with him. I was told quite forcibly that he couldnt stand he had dementia and anyway she had 23 other patients to see too!
I requested to be at the next session. They basically stood and watched while he tried to push himself up. In the end I took his hands and helped him stand. Within 20 minutes he walked 30mtrs by the end of the week he was walking a 100. They saw the illness (for the want of a better description) not the person.

Unfortunately he was 999 back to the main hospital because they thought he had had a stroke 3 days before he was due for discharge. It wasn't, it was another infection. So 4 weeks later he was back to being immobile.

I now have private physio for him and he is coming on in leaps and bounds.

 

[Sirena]

We had a similar experience RosettaT. Last year my mother broke her hip and had a hip replacement. The nurses claimed she wouldn't get out of her chair and the physios made no progress with her. We were lucky that my mother was in a good care home, and the manager went to observe a physio session. She intervened (much as you did) and got my mother up and walking. A few days later my mother returned to the care home where she had physio sessions, and she is now as mobile as she was beforehand. So rehab may be possible as long as those doing the rehab approach it in the right way - show them what to do and give help and encouragement, rather than barking instructions.

 

[Carobby]

sorry its taken a while to respond to you all. My mum lives with me i dont want her to go into a care home at the moment. I would like her more mobile with stairs but they have just tried once with her then said she has not got the cognition to follow instruction also she still has pain that restricts her trying.. I just feel that because i am a nurse they just expect me to cope with it. The Socilal service lady even said to have you thought about becoming a full time carer I cannot live on want they give per week to you. They seem to assume it is our problem not theirs. Its time they changed there view on Dementia and social care. we keep people going in to old age by curing there minor aliments that in my in the past would most probably seen them note living beyond there 70's.. Lack of fore sight by all governments has led to a total under funding of our social care. but that'st another rant. I will collect my mum next week and try to practice stairs and walking with her my self . thank you all for your kind words and suggestion. if only we all had a magic wand.

 

[Jaded'n'faded]

We had a similar experience RosettaT. Last year my mother broke her hip and had a hip replacement. The nurses claimed she wouldn't get out of her chair and the physios made no progress with her. We were lucky that my mother was in a good care home, and the manager went to observe a physio session. She intervened (much as you did) and got my mother up and walking. A few days later my mother returned to the care home where she had physio sessions, and she is now as mobile as she was beforehand. So rehab may be possible as long as those doing the rehab approach it in the right way - show them what to do and give help and encouragement, rather than barking instructions.

My experience with mum was exactly as @Sirena I also had to do a bit of encouragement to get staff to see it could be done and make sure a physio came to visit as that had not been arranged. Mum often refused to do the exercises but was quite willing to be walked down the corridors, first with 2 staff assisting then one. I'm afraid I got a bit mean with my 'encouragement' when she was reluctant. I stressed that unless she made the effort to get mobile again she would lose all her independence and become bedbound. Harsh but true! And it did the trick.

Mum now walks with a frame but she has become more frail. (It's over a year since she broke her hip.) However, she only walks on the CH corridors, i.e. on the flat. I'm pretty sure she couldn't do stairs.
(Not sure anyone could do stairs with a frame!)

 

[Sirena]

@Carobby I agree with all you say about lack of funding and it being bounced back as 'your problem'. I hope you were very clear in your reply to SS that you are not going to be a full time carer.

My mother was in hospital for ten days, and after 4 weeks her mobility seemed 'back to normal'. I don't know if she could do stairs that soon because the carers were still accompanying and observing her, and the CH has a lift so they would have used that. However I know that a few months later she could use the stairs - but I am sure recovery is very variable. As you say, if only we had a magic wand.