Finding a Nursing Home

[Dolly Pond]

This 'Talking Point' is really very good for me, I feel like I am among friends already. I have a great family, friends and partner but I really don't talk about how I am feeling, only what is happening.

The reason I have made that statement is because, since reading other peoples accounts I have found my self sitting her crying. BUT on the other hand, it is comforting to know it is O.K to laugh at things dad says or his reaction to things. Thanks Daughter.

No matter what, I will never get my head around the fact I have lost my dad to such a terrible illness. I do worry that when I leave the staff will stop being nice to dad, they really don't know the amazing man who loved us so much.

 

[noelphobic]

No matter what, I will never get my head around the fact I have lost my dad to such a terrible illness. I do worry that when I leave the staff will stop being nice to dad, they really don't know the amazing man who loved us so much.

They will know THAT he was an amazing man who loved you so much. They will know that by the fact that you visit, that you ask questions about his care and his welfare, that you are loving towards him. They will know that he wouldn't inspire such devotion if he hadn't given such devotion. They will be nice to him after you leave, hopefully because they are nice people, if they're not nice people they will be nice to him anyway because they will have seen how loved he is and know that if they're not nice to him then you will kill and/or sue them!

 

[Dolly Pond]

Sorry, I have totally left the thread of nursing homes and got all pathetic! I always remind my self that any kind of care work is hard work and not fanatically paid, the staff wouldn't be their unless they wanted to be!

Anyway the other ladies in the nursing home like my dad, often mum is 'pushed out' by someone who wants to fuss him! Mum always tells me she is O.K with that, I just hope she is.

 

[noelphobic]

Sorry, I have totally left the thread of nursing homes and got all pathetic! I always remind my self that any kind of care work is hard work and not fanatically paid, the staff wouldn't be their unless they wanted to be!

Anyway the other ladies in the nursing home like my dad, often mum is 'pushed out' by someone who wants to fuss him! Mum always tells me she is O.K with that, I just hope she is.

Dolly, when you say 'not fanatically paid' I assume you mean not fantastically paid. I am going to be a bit of a Job's comforter here but I have to say that staff in these places are either wonderful people who really care about the people in their care, which some are, or people who know it's very easy to get a job in this line of work. Personally I would much prefer to work for one of the big supermarkets for a similar rate of pay.

I do believe that this kind of work should be seen as higher status and therefore be higher paid. If that was the case then homes could pick and choose who came to work for them and therefore looked after our loved ones. Sadly this is often not the case.

It must be hard for your mum in some ways to be 'pushed out'. However, it is good to know that someone else who is there all the time is looking out for him and would tell you if anything was going on.

I feel like I am being really depressing at the moment, looking on the black side of everything, and I do apologise for that. I have recently had a response from the CSCI to a complaint I made about the first home my mum was in and they have totally dismissed it. I think it is colouring everything I say and maybe you should expel me or something! I feel like the sceptre at the feast, although sadly is is not a feast!

 

[Dolly Pond]

Spell check! Yes I did mean fantastically paid!!

Your point is mine completely, staff have to want to be their. The personal care dad gets is so much better now than when he was in the mental hospital, that was only because the staff were too stretched. Good old NHS, another bunch of fantastic staff under paid and over worked.

Noelphobic - you are honest and refreshing, I haven't found you to be negative at all. I phoned the CSCI with an enquiry when I had a small issue with dads nursing home, they were very keen to know which home I was phoning about. I didn't tell them and sorted the issue out with the help of my brother. I'm not suggesting they would of helped if I had told them but, it is interesting to hear your experience of them. I hope maybe you can take this matter forward and get it sorted out yourself?

 

[noelphobic]

I'm not hopeful about getting this sorted out. I have already been through the CSCI complaints procedure and there seems to be nowhere else to go, short of legal action.

I know that you can make anonymous reports to the CSCI. They did actually visit my mum's previous care home at about 6am last summer because they had had an anonymous report that the night staff were getting the residents up very early in the morning. My mum was living there at the time and I only found out about it recently when I checked the reports for the home on the internet.

When I telephoned to make my complaint they did ask if I wanted to remain anonymous. However, because the complaint was regarding a particular incident and because my mum no longer lived there, there was no point in remaining anonymous.

I keep going on and on about this complaint and I'm even boring myself now! I will have to start a thread by giving all the details and maybe I can then stop going on about it!

 

[Dolly Pond]

If you still need to keep talking about it, you must! Everyone here understands the pressures you are under and totally understand not only what you are seeing/experiencing but, how you are feeling.

I thought the CSCI were 'God', hence I didn't want to tell them which home I was ringing with reference to?

I'm pleased you managed to move your mother, I hope she is now receiving the care she deserves.

 

[clare]

aggression

Dear jarnee

My mum went into ch last August, mainly because my father could not cope any longer with her verbal and physical aggression. She is taking Quetiapine. which does seem to calm her as long as she takes the medication.
She can still very violent, especially towards Dad and Myself (she thinks I,m his girlfriend at times)and once went for a care worker with her hairbrush.


But getting to my point, I was asked to attend a meeting (ss and cpn and care home). I was really worried that they were going to say they couldnt cope with mum, but the opposite was the case, the said they had dealt with far worse and would keep monitoring the medication to get her as calm as possible.

I have witnessed her kicking dad and kicking tables over and threatening to murder anyone who dares to speak to her. She know has good and bad days.

So try not to worry!

And keep talking to the care home. Do you have a cpn? I find ours very helpful.


Clare

 

[noelphobic]

We moved our mother because she broke her hip in the EMI home, therefore she needed to be in a nursing home. The complaint was about the circumstances in which she broke her hip and the actions of the 'care' home staff in the immediate aftermath and for weeks afterwards.

 

[noelphobic]

Dear jarnee
and once went for a care worker with her hairbrush.
Clare

I hope the care worker's hairstyle was much improved afterwards!

No offence meant, I cope with things by seeing the funny/strange/bizarre side of events!

 

[clare]

noelphobic


None taken. We have to keep our sense of humours. Especially when i get accused by mum of not caring about her and if i was not out with all my men i would have more time for her. Im happily married for well over 20 yrs and the chance would be a fine thing!!

 

[noelphobic]

noelphobic


None taken. We have to keep our sense of humours. Especially when i get accused by mum of not caring about her and if i was not out with all my men i would have more time for her. Im happily married for well over 20 yrs and the chance would be a fine thing!!

Hi Clare

When my mum had been in the nursing home for a week she went throught his horrible phase of being really nasty to myself and my sister. She looked from one to the other of us one night and said 'you don't want me and you don't want me'. She also came out with something else really bizarre and I laughed in the way that if you don't laugh you will cry and she then said to me 'always laughing', in a really sarcastic manner. I was really hurt by this but then I said 'would you rather I was unhappy' and she was quite taken aback and I think she realised what she had said and took it back.

If you have any men to spare then please chuck one my way! I could do with a little diversion, maybe even a large diversion lol!

 

[smile]

The CSCI have a website where you can search for homes. This is the link


Thanks I agree a review website would be great and very useful for us ex pats with little option than to return home

 

[Brucie]

My biggest worry at the moment is that because of the aggression, he will get himself expelled!!!!! That ever happened to anyone else ??

People are generally moved to assessment units in hospitals in order for their aggression to be reviewed, and suitable medication to be tested.

This is quite normal, and understandable in view of the very different behavioural patterns that dementia patients have, individually, or over time in the same person.

Far as I know people just don't get moved to 'mental homes' if such things still exist, perhaps because dementia isn't a mental disease, but a degradation of physical brain function.

It's all in words, isn't it? I always relate 'mental hospital' or 'mental home' with Bedlam. A place where the condition is reviewed and which then enables the patient to move back home, or into the original care home, or another one, I would call an assessment centre.

 

[daughter]

Yes, Bruce, it is in the words. I wish we didn't have to change the name of something just because it makes it scary, but I can see that it does work by making us think about them differently. Of course they are not like they used to be but my family had had no experience of these places before and we found it a struggle just dealing with the concept of it. The place Dad went to had always been known as the "Mental Hospital" in our area and that was scary.

Added to the fact that Dad had only been in his care home for a couple of months and we were worried he couldn't go back again. Then there was the

Good old NHS, another bunch of fantastic staff under paid and over worked.

- so that Dad was just not getting the same care there as he did at his care home, it would be unrealistic to try and pretend otherwise. Plus we could not get to see him as much to look after him as before.

Having said all that, the real point I was trying to make in the first place was that Dad was only there for an assessment and, after suitable medication was found, he was able to return to his Home, as Bruce indicates. Thanks Bruce!

 

[Brucie]

Hi Hazel

I wish we didn't have to change the name of something just because it makes it scary

I agree, and I'm anyway not a very PC person!

However, I think there are so very many serious mental conditions of varying sorts that it may help to try and clarify a bit by changing the words.

As they say "there are more [strange folk] out there than were ever locked up" and I have found that dementia often in a bizarre way makes the sufferers seem more sensible than the rest of us.

For instance, sufferers tend to ignore the chronically bad media [TV, press, etc]that everyone concentrates upon these days. Their faculties for concentration and cognition dip and they have more important things to occupy them, I guess, than we have. TV and newspapers ceased to exist for Jan [and for me when she was at home], and we spent more time with each other as a result.

Because she had some strange readings on her blood tests for liver function, she was asked not to drink alcohol at one stage. I joined her in that, and suddenly, we didn't drop off to sleep in the early evenings, and by golly we spent far less each week. Not that we ever had much, but we did drink good stuff! In the end the readings were found not to be due to alcohol at all - actually they never figured that one out!

 

[Lila13]

I am not sure it is only in the words. It's being moved around without consent and treated as an object by people who don't know the person and don't have time to get to know that person.

 

[Brucie]

I am not sure it is only in the words..

I agree. I just have a major personal objection to the term 'mental home/hospital' in the context of dementia patients.

It's being moved around without consent and treated as an object by people who don't know the person and don't have time to get to know that person

I agree absolutely. I'd add don't have the will/inclination/intelligence/capacity/education/professionalism to get to know the person and their family situation

 

[Lila13]

The way the psychiatrist spoke to us (my mother and me together) it is hardly surprising my mother says she won't go back. But if you don't go back you might get labelled unco-operative.

 

[Brucie]

May appear to be frivolous, but in my view psychiatrists are more in need of their own advice than are their patients.

Jan's one smoked during the consultations and once had someone else's notes in front of him thinking they were Jan's. The best he could ever come up with was "well, hows your sex life then?".

Fortunately he went the way of all flesh shortly afterwards.