Fed up with the incessant complaining when I visit

Mary Em

Registered User
Mar 25, 2017
31
0
Will mum ever stop complaining about where she is? Mum has Alzheimers aged 94.
I am so fed up .over 2years now in care home and still not settled. Every time I visit and despite bringing her to my home occasionally, for the day, not to mention all the trips out for tea, coffee, etc etc she is still asking me to take her home, wants to be some where else, ( preferably a home of her own with help!!) she is just not happy here. She Complains about boredom, being on her own a lot, and stuck in a small room overlooking a car park, all this is probably true at times but generally the home is good.
Do we move her... It would be a gamble.
Just so fed up, but feeling sorry for her at same time.
 

Grannie G

Volunteer Moderator
Apr 3, 2006
81,443
0
Kent
Hello @Mary Em

Do you think the care home is a good one? If so, have you asked the staff how your mum is when you are not there?

If she is contented enough when you`re not there then she is just pulling at your heart strings when you visit.

If she is still discontented when you are not there would she be contented anywhere?

She is in residential care for a reason but why isn't she encouraged to leave her room and join the communal rooms. I insisted my husband should only use his room for sleeping purposes and from day one he was in the sitting room and settled really well.

I understand how fed up you are while at the same time sorry for your mum. It`s something so many of us can identify with.
 

Rosserk

Registered User
Jul 9, 2019
396
0
Will mum ever stop complaining about where she is? Mum has Alzheimers aged 94.
I am so fed up .over 2years now in care home and still not settled. Every time I visit and despite bringing her to my home occasionally, for the day, not to mention all the trips out for tea, coffee, etc etc she is still asking me to take her home, wants to be some where else, ( preferably a home of her own with help!!) she is just not happy here. She Complains about boredom, being on her own a lot, and stuck in a small room overlooking a car park, all this is probably true at times but generally the home is good.
Do we move her... It would be a gamble.
Just so fed up, but feeling sorry for her at same time.


What sort of things would your mum like to do that would alleviate her boredom? If she could do them would the complaints stop, I doubt it.

Is she on her own a lot if so do the home know that’s how she feels? My mum complains she’s bored and she’s lonely but she lives with us and there’s four of us here. We don’t confine her to her room nor do we not engage with her but still she says she is bored. She goes to her room of her own accord, it’s akin to entertaining a 5 year old except the PWD sleeps a lot less! The problem is if we spent the entire day entertaining her she would say the exact same thing the following day because she would forget she spent the whole day doing things. I wouldn’t torture yourself, you can’t win with dementia, you can beat yourself up but it won’t make a blind bit of difference what you do! My mums also the master of garnering sympathy, harsh but true!
 

Champers

Registered User
Jan 3, 2019
239
0
This sounds exactly like my Mother. When she lived on her own, and before the Alzheimer’s got a stronger hold, she was always ringing me telling me how lonely and frightened she was. However, whatever I put in place, she rejected. I arranged for a minibus to collect her several times a week to take her to a day centre - she told the driver that she was too busy to go. The hairdressers she used to go to for years were brilliant and tried to collect her to take her to the salon, but she told them that she was too tired. I arranged a companionship carer - she was rude to them and told them that she preferred her own company . Meals on wheels deliverers also got a very offensive reception from her - which was mortifying having put it in place!

I even asked her what she wanted me to do improve things for her but she always seemed to want to tell me about problems - not solutions. My husband has always said what she wants is me - nothing else. Bizarre, when she was the most spiteful, manipulative mother who was only interested in me when I had success so she could bathe in the reflected glory.

Now she’s in a CH, she’s still complaining and raging at me about how she wants to go home - to live on her own again and “be her own boss” which clearly is impossible given that she was forgetting to feed herself etc. The staff report that she is charming and “quite a character” when I’m not there - she was always very good at playing a role - and like Rosserk says, also very good at garnering sympathy. She has always been able to do “pathos” very well to strangers but turn into a hissing, spitting harridan to me when she didn’t get her own way.
 

northumbrian_k

Volunteer Host
Mar 2, 2017
4,415
0
Newcastle
No, she never will stop complaining but that doesn't mean that you need to take what she says as being accurate ... As for moving her,I suspect that would achieve nothing other than providing some more fuel for complaints. People with dementia lose a lot but seem to have sufficient self-determination that, no matter how one might try, if they don't want to engage and get involved they will not. It is their choice but that will not stop them complaining about it. Sorry!
 

TNJJ

Registered User
May 7, 2019
2,967
0
cornwall
Yep! Dad is the same.It gets very wearing and to be honest I get inclined to do less and less.
Now I have just been diagnosed with Oestoarthritus it will be less .
As much as you want to help there is only so much you can do ,even with carers.
Dad was not a happy person even before the vascular dementia and stroke.He is even worse now.Just his personality and the dementia make me want to do a "Reggie Perrin"! Remember the tv series??
 

annierich

Registered User
Nov 11, 2015
63
0
I agree with everyone else’s comments but just a thought - how about not taking her out of the home for a bit and see if that helps her to settle? Maybe the fact that she goes out triggers her ‘I want to go home’ thoughts / comments?
 

Mumsmum

Registered User
Oct 29, 2012
65
0
Scotland
My mum says if she can’t complain to me who can she complain to, so takes full advantage of switching off or moaning to me but is charming and the life and soul for everyone else and for everything she goes to.
 

Sarasa

Volunteer Host
Apr 13, 2018
7,195
0
Nottinghamshire
My mother is the same @MaryEm . She's been in her home for getting on for six months and the carers think she might be someone who never really settles. She was certainly stuffing knickers in a bag ahead of 'going home' when I arrived on Tuesday and she didn't know I was coming. I'm finding visiting more and more difficult. I think she is making less and less sense, but as she's started talking very quietly and I'm deaf I can't really be sure.
Maybe not take your mum out for a while and see if that makes a difference, but I have a horrible feeling it might just be down to the person's original personality. My mum was always someone who thought things were better elsewhere, dementia has just exacerbated that.
 

AliceA

Registered User
May 27, 2016
2,911
0
I doubt if anything will change her, try as you might, she may be different when you are not there. Children and animals often act differently when the parent or owner is not about, then whine when they see them come or go.
She may need to vent and who else but you?
People usually complain to people they trust not to desert them.

All you can do is not to take it personally, to reach out but step back emotionally. This make take practice.
Perhaps agree wth her but say you would love this or that too however it is not allowed, agree it would s tough for her but you are working on an answer. Blame a third party, be on her side.
Perhaps she just needs her pain recognised, too often people ignore that it is painful to be old and no longer have any control over ones life.
I ask how would I feel?
I find asking questions about the distant past can sometimes take a person out of the present situation. Showing an old photo?

Body language is more discernible with people with dementia, what ever we say can be overridden by that.
So just relax after if you can.
 

Jaded'n'faded

Registered User
Jan 23, 2019
5,258
0
High Peak
Identical situation with my mum, also in a CH. Always complaining, nothing is ever right, she's had nothing to eat or drink all day, all the staff have been sacked, she's been sacked from her job, she's bored to tears, she wants to move somewhere or go to her mother's house, she wants to go shopping in town/catch the bus home/pick the children up and they won't let her...

It is never-ending. Whatever I (or anyone else) suggest it is rejected - she just wants to stay in her room and read. Then she says, 'All I ever do is stay in my room and read.'

I have had 2 and a half years of this and don't see it changing anytime soon.

(Sorry this isn't what you wanted to hear!)
 

Sirena

Registered User
Feb 27, 2018
2,324
0
I agree with @northumbrian_k and others who say that moving her will make no difference. The problem is not the care home, it's the dementia.

Even if she was at home and had someone entertaining her for 16 hours a day, she'd still say she was bored, because the dementia means she cannot properly engage in what is happening, and very quickly forgets what has happened anyway. The desire to 'go home' is a simply a wish to go back to pre-dementia days and moving to a different care home is likely to result in the similar complaints in a different venue. Best to accept there is nothing you can do to make her any happier and let the complaints wash over you.
 

Jale

Registered User
Jul 9, 2018
1,137
0
We regularly get told by Mum that she never sleeps, doesn't eat or drink and everyone shouts/bangs doors amongst other things. When they have activities she says she never joins in but we have watched her without her knowing we are there and she does join in - until we walk in- and then she stops. As for eating she has actually put on weight since going into the home.

I think if it were me I would stop taking her out - it may in it's weird way be giving her hope that she can "go home"
Good Luck
 

Champers

Registered User
Jan 3, 2019
239
0
Had “one of those” visits to mother today.

Staff tell how lovely she is and how she is no trouble at all. I arrive, and all hell breaks loose. She started shouting that she was going home this afternoon and no one was going to stop her. How bored she was and how she never saw herself ending up with “these sort of people” indicating all the other residents, I tried the distractions and changing the subject but she roared at me that, “You’re not listening are you?!” “I hate this bloody place!” Ironically, she looks fitter and healthier in the last 3 weeks that she has been in the CH than she has for months, so she can’t be doing that badly and even when she was in her own home, she kept telling me she was going to sell up and “go home” from there!

She then got up and told she was leaving right now and headed for the reception area. I stayed sitting, as I think she wanted a reaction out of me, and thirty seconds later later, a member of staff calmly brought her back into the lounge and said that mother had demanded that they call the police about me. :( Mother sat herself down, well away from me and refused to engage any further. When I got up and said goodbye, she just turned away sulking.

We’ve never had a good relationship and I know nothing is going to magically change but when I’ve truly tried my best and she is only in care because she was literally starving herself to death and was becoming a danger to herself, so it’s hard not to react. It’s almost as though she is saving all her bad behaviour up for my visits and I’m the one that receives all the venom.

Sorry - just wanted to offload!
 
Last edited:

TNJJ

Registered User
May 7, 2019
2,967
0
cornwall
Had “one of those” visits to mother today.

Staff tell how lovely she is and how she is no trouble at all. I arrive, and all hell breaks loose. She started shouting that she was going home this afternoon and no one was going to stop her. How bored she was and how she never saw herself ending up with “these sort of people” indicating all the other residents, I tried the distractions and changing the subject but she roared at me that, “You’re not listening are you?!” “I hate this bloody place!” Ironically, she looks fitter and healthier in the last 3 weeks that she has been in the CH than she has for months, so she can’t be doing that badly.

She then got up and told she was leaving right now and headed for the reception area. I stayed sitting, as I think she wanted a reaction out of me, and thirty seconds later later, a member of staff calmly brought her back into the lounge and said that mother had demanded that they call the police about me. :( Mother sat herself down, well away from me and refused to engage any further. When I got up and said goodbye, she just turned away sulking.

We’ve never had a good relationship and I know nothing is going to magically change but when I’ve truly tried my best and she is only in care because she was literally starving herself to death and was becoming a danger to herself, so it’s hard not to react. It’s almost as though she is saving all her bad behaviour up for my visits.
It can definitely feel like that. Dad and I were never close. He would always go away to Cyprus for Xmas when my children were young
His bank never knew he had a daughter until I went in with LPOA.

Same with the doctor etc.I find it ironic really that I am the main carer.
I have a “boundary” that I will not allow him to cross.That is the only way I can cope sometimes.

A bit of manipulator is dad tbh..
 

DesperateofDevon

Registered User
Jul 7, 2019
3,274
0
Had “one of those” visits to mother today.

Staff tell how lovely she is and how she is no trouble at all. I arrive, and all hell breaks loose. She started shouting that she was going home this afternoon and no one was going to stop her. How bored she was and how she never saw herself ending up with “these sort of people” indicating all the other residents, I tried the distractions and changing the subject but she roared at me that, “You’re not listening are you?!” “I hate this bloody place!” Ironically, she looks fitter and healthier in the last 3 weeks that she has been in the CH than she has for months, so she can’t be doing that badly and even when she was in her own home, she kept telling me she was going to sell up and “go home” from there!

She then got up and told she was leaving right now and headed for the reception area. I stayed sitting, as I think she wanted a reaction out of me, and thirty seconds later later, a member of staff calmly brought her back into the lounge and said that mother had demanded that they call the police about me. :( Mother sat herself down, well away from me and refused to engage any further. When I got up and said goodbye, she just turned away sulking.

We’ve never had a good relationship and I know nothing is going to magically change but when I’ve truly tried my best and she is only in care because she was literally starving herself to death and was becoming a danger to herself, so it’s hard not to react. It’s almost as though she is saving all her bad behaviour up for my visits and I’m the one that receives all the venom.

Sorry - just wanted to offload!


so it’s taken a stay in hospital of over 5 weeks major UTI etc, before my Mum has tolerated my help. The new drug regime may help but I’m not complaining! My mum no longer sits hissing & spitting at me like a cornered cat with a bad case of fleas!

I’m still at the brunt of her tongue & it’s usually my fault if something goes wrong- I’m over 125 miles away but hey if the cat had opposable thumbs I’d be off the hook!

it’s like having a geriatric teenager/ toddler hybrid - if you get what I mean. This irrationality from a senior adult is hard to accept at times so by viewing Mum as a new geriatric version of Kevin & Perry / toddler tantrums included I find I can rationalise ( at times) the bizarre behaviour & repetitive nature of the demands!

I didn’t give in to toddler tantrums & im not going to give in to geriatric tantrums either.

I do believe that a sequel Kevin & perry - the geriatric years is definitely needed!
 

TNJJ

Registered User
May 7, 2019
2,967
0
cornwall
so it’s taken a stay in hospital of over 5 weeks major UTI etc, before my Mum has tolerated my help. The new drug regime may help but I’m not complaining! My mum no longer sits hissing & spitting at me like a cornered cat with a bad case of fleas!

I’m still at the brunt of her tongue & it’s usually my fault if something goes wrong- I’m over 125 miles away but hey if the cat had opposable thumbs I’d be off the hook!

it’s like having a geriatric teenager/ toddler hybrid - if you get what I mean. This irrationality from a senior adult is hard to accept at times so by viewing Mum as a new geriatric version of Kevin & Perry / toddler tantrums included I find I can rationalise ( at times) the bizarre behaviour & repetitive nature of the demands!

I didn’t give in to toddler tantrums & im not going to give in to geriatric tantrums either.

I do believe that a sequel Kevin & perry - the geriatric years is definitely needed!
That would be fun to watch! I used to love Stephanie Cole in “Waiting for God”.That would be me.Im a bit of an activist so waiting for SS etc doesn’t always sit well
 

DesperateofDevon

Registered User
Jul 7, 2019
3,274
0
Well as my own battles to access help for my PWD are well documented on this forum , I think you are aware of my slightly warped sense of humour!

Ab Fab the later years...
Fawlty Towers the care home years .....
 

Champers

Registered User
Jan 3, 2019
239
0
so it’s taken a stay in hospital of over 5 weeks major UTI etc, before my Mum has tolerated my help. The new drug regime may help but I’m not complaining! My mum no longer sits hissing & spitting at me like a cornered cat with a bad case of fleas!

I’m still at the brunt of her tongue & it’s usually my fault if something goes wrong- I’m over 125 miles away but hey if the cat had opposable thumbs I’d be off the hook!

it’s like having a geriatric teenager/ toddler hybrid - if you get what I mean. This irrationality from a senior adult is hard to accept at times so by viewing Mum as a new geriatric version of Kevin & Perry / toddler tantrums included I find I can rationalise ( at times) the bizarre behaviour & repetitive nature of the demands!

I didn’t give in to toddler tantrums & im not going to give in to geriatric tantrums either.

I do believe that a sequel Kevin & perry - the geriatric years is definitely needed!

Thank you so much for your reply - that has really made me laugh! Love it! Hissing and spitting like a cornered cat, yep, that’s Mother! She’s always thrown tantrums too, well before she ever had Alzheimer’s, so I should be used to it but when she was fit and well, it was a lot easier to respond firmly or just walk away. I think it’s the sheer frustration of having to have that self control and biting my tongue because she’s actually a very ill woman otherwise I would be a lot tougher and tell her some home truths.

You’ve made me evening with your spot on observations. :)
 

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