Mum won’t allow us to organise carers

Youngerson

New member
Jun 11, 2019
3
0
My mother has had a recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She seems to understand what this means but she doesn’t want us to tell her friends. She simply tells them she has tablets for her memory. Mum is living on her own and is generally fit. Either me or my brother visits once a week. She is still in the early stages and is safe at home on her own but we want her to have a carer twice a week to do the laundry, change her bedding and check she is eating. Mum is very independent and doesn’t see why she needs someone as she feels she can do all this herself. When she remembers she can do this work but we feel she forgets to do it. If we ask we get told she did it yesterday. Does anyone have any techniques to help us persuade mum to have someone in
 

Rosettastone57

Registered User
Oct 27, 2016
1,839
0
My mother has had a recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She seems to understand what this means but she doesn’t want us to tell her friends. She simply tells them she has tablets for her memory. Mum is living on her own and is generally fit. Either me or my brother visits once a week. She is still in the early stages and is safe at home on her own but we want her to have a carer twice a week to do the laundry, change her bedding and check she is eating. Mum is very independent and doesn’t see why she needs someone as she feels she can do all this herself. When she remembers she can do this work but we feel she forgets to do it. If we ask we get told she did it yesterday. Does anyone have any techniques to help us persuade mum to have someone in

Welcome to the forum. This is a very common problem and in my experience with my mother-in-law who had mixed dementia, if you wait for someone with dementia to see your point of view or agree with you, you will wait forever.

My mother-in-law lived on her own and we introduced carers very slowly for a couple of mornings a week . She was self-funding and we had power of attorney over her finances so we arranged it whether she liked it or not. We told her the carers were free when she reached a certain age.
Of course she was rude and aggressive and kept telling us that she didn't need carers but to be frank we just ignored it and told her it was not negotiable.

We developed a strategy to tell her that the carers were coming to her ,because they were learning how to look after people who were really ill . And they were practicing first with her as a training method. The care agency that we used were of course in on this ruse. This seemed to placate her and she accepted this explanation. In the end we had carers three times a day for over 3 years until things unfortunately deteriorated and she had to go into full-time care.

It's not an easy situation and I'm sure others will be along to share their experiences and give better advice
 
Last edited:

prodigal-son

Registered User
Feb 1, 2019
45
0
I wish you luck, @Youngerson. Some interesting ideas from @Rosettastone57, so perhaps you can find a co-operative agency. My own father did not want care and I couldn't find an agency who would take him on without a health and welfare LPA, which I didn't have.

Self-employed or informal carers might be easier at this stage. Could you persuade your mum she "deserves a little help with the ironing"?

Just get that health and welfare LPA in place, if you haven't already. In my dad's case it took a crisis, a hospital stay and a best interests decision from social services before I was able to get home care for him. Even now the agency is asking for a signed authority from him and I shall have to argue with them.
 

Youngerson

New member
Jun 11, 2019
3
0
I wish you luck, @Youngerson. Some interesting ideas from @Rosettastone57, so perhaps you can find a co-operative agency. My own father did not want care and I couldn't find an agency who would take him on without a health and welfare LPA, which I didn't have.

Self-employed or informal carers might be easier at this stage. Could you persuade your mum she "deserves a little help with the ironing"?

Just get that health and welfare LPA in place, if you haven't already. In my dad's case it took a crisis, a hospital stay and a best interests decision from social services before I was able to get home care for him. Even now the agency is asking for a signed authority from him and I shall have to argue with them.

Thanks for your advise. Mum will be a self funder for a bit and we do have both types of LPA so can organise for her. I agree that an informal arrangement might be better at the start.
 

Youngerson

New member
Jun 11, 2019
3
0
Welcome to the forum. This is a very common problem and in my experience with my mother-in-law who had mixed dementia, if you wait for someone with dementia to see your point of view or agree with you, you will wait forever.

My mother-in-law lived on her own and we introduced carers very slowly for a couple of mornings a week . She was self-funding and we had power of attorney over her finances so we arranged it whether she liked it or not. We told her the carers were free when she reached a certain age.
Of course she was rude and aggressive and kept telling us that she didn't need carers but to be frank we just ignored it and told her it was not negotiable.

We developed a strategy to tell her that the carers were coming to her ,because they were learning how to look after people who were really ill . And they were practicing first with her as a training method. The care agency that we used were of course in on this ruse. This seemed to placate her and she accepted this explanation. In the end we had carers three times a day for over 3 years until things unfortunately deteriorated and she had to go into full-time care.

It's not an easy situation and I'm sure others will be along to share their experiences and give better advice

Thanks for advice. Your comment about making it non negotiable is well taken as I have been trying to persuade her with no succes. I think the ruse with the care agency is a great idea !
 

Sirena

Registered User
Feb 27, 2018
2,324
0
As @Rosettastone57 says, you just have to do it - don't enter into long discussions about it with your mother as she will not agree. And even if she did agree, she'd change her mind several times a day.

One thing I would suggest - do not refer to them as carers. Says she's a cleaner, or a nice lady who helps out, or whatever will fit best to get your mother to agree.

I only have financial LPA and I never had any problem with the care agency - they never asked my mother to agree to or sign anything, all contractual dealings were with me.
 

shieldbeater95

New member
Jul 11, 2020
1
0
Our family are having similar type issues. Recently introduced new carers for my mum but she is still very upset and annoyed with us as we didn’t give her much option. She is of the opinion that she doesn’t need help. Although we are finding it difficult at the moment I still think making this non negotiable was the best think for our situation.
 

Lynmax

Registered User
Nov 1, 2016
1,045
0
My mum was able to live independly for a few years after her diagnosis with our discreet support. I have two siblings living in this country so we made sure that Mum had at least one visit from all of us each week. At these visits we would help her change the bedding, subtly check use by dates in the fridge, take her shopping ( mum stopped driving as soon as she was diagnosed) and generally sort out any problems we noticed. Luckily mum had been using cleaners for years so we just had to do a bit of tidying up on our visits.

Gradually we increased our support without mum knowing - registered the LPA with the bank, installed a call blocker on the phone, fixed plates over electric sockets to stop mum disconnecting things, put in the internet so we could use cctv and Hive heating etc. These all allowed mum to feel independent while allowing us to keep her safe.

We were able to increase our visits to once a day as we all live within a half hour journey so made sure mum hat a cooked meal once a day. Carers were only employed once mum got confused about how to use kitchen appliances and so she was not eating properly the rest of the time. We just told mum that some friends were going to call round for lunch and that they loved cooking!

So if you and your brother are able to visit frequently ( I was retired, my sister worked shifts and my brother worked full time but would go round at tea time) you might not need careers straight away. Your mum might accept your help rather than carers. Luckily mum was not on any medication. We did have to deal quickly with a few crisis type situations but we seemed to manage until a fall meant mum was admitted to hospital at the end on March. We had reached the end of our ability to support mum at home safely so it was agreed that the hospital social worker would find a care home place until the pandemic was over but it soon became apparent that mum no longer had capacity and her placement was made permanent just this week. '

The best thing we did was install interactive cameras inside and outside the house so we got alerts when she went outside, knew who was calling at the house, could check that she was up each morning and keep an eye on what she was doing day or night.
 

Jessbow

Registered User
Mar 1, 2013
5,677
0
Midlands
I used reverse Psychology.

I used My dads brothers neice ( ie we were related abeit distantly) And sold it to ''Mum as ''Emma is having a tough time, needs a little job...''

Mum was then Helping Emma out, rather than Emma helping Mum- Emma was a godsend!
 

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