What a horrible shock for you and your husband. Glad she was OK.
But I think you need to try hard to find a solution if possible which will not wreck your own family life, so that you and your husband and son can still go out to football matches, or just out for a walk or down to the shops spontaneously or whatever.
Using carers whenever your Mother is alone means abandoning any flexibility, no chance to ever all 3 of you go out together without it being planned 24 hrs in advance. (Unless it really is a late-afternoon only thing, I suppose, and you'd feel OK to go out in the morning). Quite apart from the expense.
For you to keep on looking after your Mother at home with you, you need to preserve your own family's quality of life at a bearable level.
So I'd start looking at technology: systems like someone mentioned above for a door alarm, or the systems with a recorded message saying "Mum, please don't go out without us" if she opens the door, etc. The GPS ideas sound great too.
Maybe I'm being heartless. We are living with my Mother to care for her, and at first (after my father's death) never both left the house without her, as the GP had said "Of course it would be dangerour for her not to have 24 hr care". But then after 6 weeks or so we became more relaxed, remembering that Father often went out for part or whole days and she was fine on her own. We now reckon we can leave her a few hours at a time, with her "lifeline" pendant in case of any fall (never yet used it), and we can plan a whole day out by booking a couple of half hour carer visits in the day. She's very lucky, only mildly affected and very stable on Aricept, only deteriorating slightly in the almost 2 years we've been here. Just no short term memory. Also at 94 is not a great walker: more dangerous is that she might start to cook and forget and burn things (which she could do just as well when we're in the garden or in another room of the house, as we don't sit with her all day). We have two smoke alarms.
Obviously everyone is different, and Mother has shown no signs of wandering off, so we are in a different boat. (Years ago it was thought that Mother had wandered off and got lost on a horrible wet night after getting a lift home from WI meeting while Father was out at another meeting: it turned out that she'd forgotten her key, gone to a neighbour's, left a note through the letterbox to say so, and Father had come in, trodden on the note, and it had stuck to his shoe so he didn't find it... !)
But you do need to weigh up the quality of life for all members of the family.
Good luck, Pam
But I think you need to try hard to find a solution if possible which will not wreck your own family life, so that you and your husband and son can still go out to football matches, or just out for a walk or down to the shops spontaneously or whatever.
Using carers whenever your Mother is alone means abandoning any flexibility, no chance to ever all 3 of you go out together without it being planned 24 hrs in advance. (Unless it really is a late-afternoon only thing, I suppose, and you'd feel OK to go out in the morning). Quite apart from the expense.
For you to keep on looking after your Mother at home with you, you need to preserve your own family's quality of life at a bearable level.
So I'd start looking at technology: systems like someone mentioned above for a door alarm, or the systems with a recorded message saying "Mum, please don't go out without us" if she opens the door, etc. The GPS ideas sound great too.
Maybe I'm being heartless. We are living with my Mother to care for her, and at first (after my father's death) never both left the house without her, as the GP had said "Of course it would be dangerour for her not to have 24 hr care". But then after 6 weeks or so we became more relaxed, remembering that Father often went out for part or whole days and she was fine on her own. We now reckon we can leave her a few hours at a time, with her "lifeline" pendant in case of any fall (never yet used it), and we can plan a whole day out by booking a couple of half hour carer visits in the day. She's very lucky, only mildly affected and very stable on Aricept, only deteriorating slightly in the almost 2 years we've been here. Just no short term memory. Also at 94 is not a great walker: more dangerous is that she might start to cook and forget and burn things (which she could do just as well when we're in the garden or in another room of the house, as we don't sit with her all day). We have two smoke alarms.
Obviously everyone is different, and Mother has shown no signs of wandering off, so we are in a different boat. (Years ago it was thought that Mother had wandered off and got lost on a horrible wet night after getting a lift home from WI meeting while Father was out at another meeting: it turned out that she'd forgotten her key, gone to a neighbour's, left a note through the letterbox to say so, and Father had come in, trodden on the note, and it had stuck to his shoe so he didn't find it... !)
But you do need to weigh up the quality of life for all members of the family.
Good luck, Pam
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