I chose the title of this thread (‘Catching Up’) partly to reflect an update of my family’s circumstances, but also because I felt that we were now catching up with some on TP who were further down the dementia road.
I thought about this title three weeks ago when my father-in-law (nearly 88, suffering from mixed dementia – Alzheimer’s and vascular – diagnosed over three years ago) was admitted to hospital following a fall.
The past few years have shown a relatively slow decline, with my FIL being cared for at home by his wife (herself 84) with the assistance of carers every morning. We’d noticed that he had started to become even more confused in the last three months or so.
Also, my MIL had started to show some signs of dementia herself. My husband took her to a memory clinic appointment about 6 weeks ago where she scored 21 on the MMSE and the doctors thought that she might be a good candidate for medication (following a brain scan that has yet to take place).
We live about 75 miles away and my husband is their only child, so it has always been a bit of a balancing act, even with the help of carers and neighbours.
After a week in hospital, my FIL was declared ‘medically fit for discharge’ and we were contacted by the hospital social worker(SW) on the discharge team. We had already decided that my MIL was not coping well and that a local care home was the best option.
Once the SW had established that we were self-financing she was keen to let us get on with it, but when asked for a list of suitable local homes with vacancies she did email me a list. Luckily we had looked at a number of homes two years ago, and even put his name down on the waiting lists for a few. We saw this as a no obligation ‘insurance policy’.
After spending a day on the telephone, I had established our top three homes with vacancies which would be willing to assess him in hospital. We had been told that he needed EMI residential care, not nursing care and did not qualify for NHS Continuing Care despite also having myeloma (a type of cancer).
Our first choice home rang after seeing him in hospital (the morning we were due to take our 12 year old daughter to London for a birthday treat to see Phantom of the Opera – booked months ago) and said they felt he needed nursing care and could not take him. This led to more questions to the SW about nursing care, but it was stated that he had not been assessed by the ward as needing nursing care.
If someone is assessed as needing nursing care the NHS contributes £100 to the care home to cover the cost of this medical need. We decided to go ahead and find a EMI nursing home and not worry about the cost implications. We could always ask for him to be re-assessed once settled in the home.
Luckily we did find a lovely EMI nursing home not too far from my MIL which assessed and felt that they could meet his needs. We really wanted to find some place that could truly be a ‘home for life’. He moved into the home on Friday evening and we were planning to visit with my MIL on Sunday (yesterday).
This was not to be. We had a telephone call from the home manager at 11.45pm on Saturday to say that his breathing had become irregular and he had been transferred to hospital. He died shortly thereafter – quickly and peacefully we are led to believe.
So now we are working on organising all the things that accompany the death of a loved one – something new for both my husband and I.
Our focus now is on supporting my MIL and making her life as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. The extent of her dementia (which may be mostly vascular) has been shown to be much worse than we expected as she has had a hard time remembering my FIL was no longer living at home over the past three weeks
.
We now move onto the difficult task of supporting someone with dementia living alone from a distance. My MIL has sounded positive about the prospect of moving to Cambridge into some sort of sheltered housing scheme, or possibly a residential home (licensed for dementia care).
Can I just say that during all the ups and downs of the last three weeks, I drew tremendous strength from the stories that others have shared on TP and I knew that we were not alone.
Sorry that this is so long, but I kept waiting for things to ‘settle down’ before posting. I think settling down will now become a relative term.
Take care,
Sandy
I thought about this title three weeks ago when my father-in-law (nearly 88, suffering from mixed dementia – Alzheimer’s and vascular – diagnosed over three years ago) was admitted to hospital following a fall.
The past few years have shown a relatively slow decline, with my FIL being cared for at home by his wife (herself 84) with the assistance of carers every morning. We’d noticed that he had started to become even more confused in the last three months or so.
Also, my MIL had started to show some signs of dementia herself. My husband took her to a memory clinic appointment about 6 weeks ago where she scored 21 on the MMSE and the doctors thought that she might be a good candidate for medication (following a brain scan that has yet to take place).
We live about 75 miles away and my husband is their only child, so it has always been a bit of a balancing act, even with the help of carers and neighbours.
After a week in hospital, my FIL was declared ‘medically fit for discharge’ and we were contacted by the hospital social worker(SW) on the discharge team. We had already decided that my MIL was not coping well and that a local care home was the best option.
Once the SW had established that we were self-financing she was keen to let us get on with it, but when asked for a list of suitable local homes with vacancies she did email me a list. Luckily we had looked at a number of homes two years ago, and even put his name down on the waiting lists for a few. We saw this as a no obligation ‘insurance policy’.
After spending a day on the telephone, I had established our top three homes with vacancies which would be willing to assess him in hospital. We had been told that he needed EMI residential care, not nursing care and did not qualify for NHS Continuing Care despite also having myeloma (a type of cancer).
Our first choice home rang after seeing him in hospital (the morning we were due to take our 12 year old daughter to London for a birthday treat to see Phantom of the Opera – booked months ago) and said they felt he needed nursing care and could not take him. This led to more questions to the SW about nursing care, but it was stated that he had not been assessed by the ward as needing nursing care.
If someone is assessed as needing nursing care the NHS contributes £100 to the care home to cover the cost of this medical need. We decided to go ahead and find a EMI nursing home and not worry about the cost implications. We could always ask for him to be re-assessed once settled in the home.
Luckily we did find a lovely EMI nursing home not too far from my MIL which assessed and felt that they could meet his needs. We really wanted to find some place that could truly be a ‘home for life’. He moved into the home on Friday evening and we were planning to visit with my MIL on Sunday (yesterday).
This was not to be. We had a telephone call from the home manager at 11.45pm on Saturday to say that his breathing had become irregular and he had been transferred to hospital. He died shortly thereafter – quickly and peacefully we are led to believe.
So now we are working on organising all the things that accompany the death of a loved one – something new for both my husband and I.
Our focus now is on supporting my MIL and making her life as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. The extent of her dementia (which may be mostly vascular) has been shown to be much worse than we expected as she has had a hard time remembering my FIL was no longer living at home over the past three weeks
.We now move onto the difficult task of supporting someone with dementia living alone from a distance. My MIL has sounded positive about the prospect of moving to Cambridge into some sort of sheltered housing scheme, or possibly a residential home (licensed for dementia care).
Can I just say that during all the ups and downs of the last three weeks, I drew tremendous strength from the stories that others have shared on TP and I knew that we were not alone.
Sorry that this is so long, but I kept waiting for things to ‘settle down’ before posting. I think settling down will now become a relative term.
Take care,
Sandy
