Concerns about mum in care home

[Malteser54]

I am not belittling your concerns, but looking at them one by one.

She would not have been on the floor in a coma for three days. We know that not because all care homes are so great, but because all care homes check on residents often enough so if there was a unexpected death too much time did not elapse before it was reported and then the home were exposed as negligent.

She is left lying in wee. The problem here is if she is incontinent of urine there will be times when she will lie in urine if she is unable to get up and report it. Even if it is reported it doesn’t mean there are staff waiting around to fix the problem instantly.
A few minutes lying in a wet bed can seem like a very long time. This is definitely one to talk to the manager about what improvements can be made, for checking alerting and reporting.
Has her continence declined? Does she wear pads. What is she wearing at night are they good quality night pads or silly little day slip pads. Does she need an assessment done ?

The man exposing himself could easily be another resident. other one to discuss with the manager.

staff from different cultures speak at different volumes. Face masks don’t assist with communication, which sadly can lead to misunderstanding. Other subject to bring up with the manager.

People with dementia don’t always tell the truth.
Sometimes they tell the truth
( there are six inch spiders running round the lounge) but it only ‘their truth’!
Good luck with that one.
sometimes people with dementia can be just as devious and manipulative as the rest of us, are the tales designed to have you packing her case for a return home?

Having said all that if you remain unhappy , you are in the lucky position of knowing of a good care home, so travel a little further and move her to somewhere you can relax !

 

[Malteser54]

Hello again,
I really valued all your contributions, thank you all.

We held the zoom meeting today and the outcome was very satisfactory. The manager and senior care manager both addressed each of our queries openly and honestly, with explanations that have made all three of us feel much less anxious. The 'exposer' turned out to be a man in a room opposite my mother's who likes to sleep naked and with the door open. He is quite heavily sedated most of the time, so unlikely to even make it out of his own room and across the corridor! Issues re wetting bed and so on will be sorted by sourcing some really much thicker pull up pads for her. They also sent some lovely pictures of her having her nails painted and smiling.

So, it seems that I shall have to take a stronger line on the negativity that emanates from her during our phone calls. She does blame me for pretty much everything that is not good, but that has been the case for a while! So, once again thank you one and all.

 

[canary]

Im glad your mind has now been put more at rest.
How lovely to have photos of your mum smiling while her nails are being done.

 

[Louise7]

That's good news @Malteser54 and must be a relief. With regards to taking a 'stronger line' on the negativity that emanates from your mum during your phone calls, those with dementia can tend to pick up on other people's moods very easily. If I'm feeling stressed, worried etc then my mum would feel the same when I visited her in the home so I made a point of being 'happy, clappy, smiley' all of the time, regardless of how I was actually feeling, and always spoke positively about how lovely the home and the staff were, which in turn made mum feel happy too. It could be that as you feel guilty about your mum being in the home she picks up on this during your conversations. Maybe next conversation you could try talking about how lovely she looked in the pictures, and how nice her nails were etc and see if it helps. Hopefully as your mum settles more telephone calls may become less stressful.

 

[jb2]

Hi Junie,

They are really simple to work, in fact, once you've set it up the person with dementia doesn't have to do a thing! You can go to an app on your phone and click drop in and then you pop up on the screen, can see/hear whatever the camera is pointed at and they can see/hear you.

They come in different sized screens, we have 2x 5-inch screen (£60 apiece) that I put in areas of the house they're not in as often but that occasionally my Dad was getting agitated in (hallway on the way to the shower, etc) so that I can pop up and calm him down when he's agitated. But we have a10 inch screen as well in the kitchen (more expensive, I think £170 but you can get refurbished ones off amazon for cheaper) - I have to say this is a lot better, as they don't always look at the screen with the small ones (however still a godsend as it means I don't have to wait for the stress over them answering the phone and its everyone can hear everyone). There is a middle priced/sized one at 8 inches as well.

They also work like any other Alexa device, so you can play music by asking it 'Alexa play X', and as the person who has it linked to an app on your phone (or Amazon fire tablet - about 60 quid) then you can also choose to play them music by operating it yourself remotely.

I sound like a salesman, but its been great during COVID, we can see each other, there's zero stress about it and it works off the WIFI.
[/QUOT

Hi Buckles
Thanks so much will have a look , it sounds great

Junie