Hi all,
I am quite new to the forum and still working my way around how to use it but I do pop in and out to read the new posts. So late afternoon yesterday I get a long email from my sister saying dads Care Company have called her today to say that his verbally abusive behavior is now becoming a problem. Its been going on a while and they did say a few weeks back they would be monitoring him, its generally shouting but he can get up and get in their face and has recently waved a stick at one of them I assume threatening to strike out. Dad has four care visits a day is doubly incontinent and was officially diagnosed with Mixed Dementia Vascular and Alzheimer's in March 2018. We had noticed problems way before that his memory being poor etc, my dad still lives in his Council owned home with his dog and our mother passed in late summer 2016. My sister and I both live close to dad, a short drive for me and a few minutes walk for her. We have both been visiting dad on a regular basis since our mother passed in fact alternate daily visits morning and evening. At the end of June this year I made the decision to start visiting dad in afternoons due to my own partners declining health as he has Parkinson's and he also suffered a Heart Attack in May 2018. My partner of 20 years is now 76 years old and it didn't seem right to leave him especially in the morning when he needs to get showered and dressed and he was starting to have some falls around the house generally. Occupational Therapy are coming in for partner next week. My dad is 85 years old stable on his feet more so than my partner, I am 60 years old. My sister and I didn't get on never did and had no contact for over 20 years prior to our mothers passing but we worked together and corresponded, sometimes even met up etc in order to help dad I thought we were doing well and getting on as sisters do. Unfortunately my changing visits to dad did not meet with her approval but that's another story!! My sister has recently dropped her evening visit too. Its fair to say she is now the one that goes in every morning and if there before the Carer arrives gets dad out of bed. Dad now demands a daily cooked breakfast a bad habit we started following a hospital stay in summer 2017 as we were a bit concerned about his weight. We thought a cooked breakfast would help keep his weight up although he's never been very big or overweight anyway. Its something we did alternate days as previously said until end of June this year. Carer does not do breakfast unless we were/are unavailable which is very rare as sister still does it. Unfortunately at the weekend my sister was unavailable and dad apparently was very abusive to the morning carer and seems she was 'forced' into cooking him sausages having to defrost some quickly from the freezer in order to give him the breakfast he wanted. I still visit dad regularly albeit only 5 days a week not daily. My sister has a adult mentally handicapped daughter living at home but her husband is now retired so he is able to help her out more. I do appreciate and don't dismiss in any way what she does for dad and to be honest I don't know how she carries on with it all, apart from my partners illness I was also getting very depressed and struggling myself. I am responsible for dads shopping needs and take him if he wants to go as sister does not drive. Iv'e said I will still do what I can washing etc but invariably she has done it. Carer does get dad washed and dressed although if needed sister will change pad before his breakfast, again its something we have both done. Dad refuses a bath or shower so its a daily strip wash since care was first provided in late 2017. Dad is getting very irritated with the Carers coming in and out now but he honestly couldn't live at home without them and to be honest I have had doubts for some while as to how he would cope without our visits. I know what his temper is like Iv'e been at the receiving end of it a few times especially since my morning visits ended its not pleasant at all and I sometimes do wonder why I visit when he's so nasty to me. I tell myself he can't help it because its his dementia but I also think his dementia is progressing. Dad has no memory of my mother having a sister now.something he remembered a few months ago. I struggle with my sisters views and as yet haven't replied to her email thinking what to say to her. My sister is complaining the Carers are not emptying the catheter bag on every visit to dad she has mentioned it to his Care Company yesterday says so in her email and its more often than not the afternoon Carers visit but dad often refuses to let them he's the same with pad and they can't go against his wishes. I actually found 22 dirty pads in a wardrobe earlier this year and prior to that some hidden in a chest of drawers. Sister is now complaining a week later since she brought it up with me that she has noted from his Carers book that I have emptied the bag on two or three of my recent afternoon visits. My sister now infers in her email I am interfering in the Carers role/visits however she clearly doesn't think twice when she cancels his lunchtime carer to cook him fish and chips on a weekly basis!. I thought she would be happy I had managed to empty his bag without him fussing but seems she's not and has also criticized me for just making dad a tea and giving him a cake etc but surely as his daughter that would be a natural thing to do regardless of when his Carer is due. Sister is now suggesting I don't visit when Carers are due but this would leave me a smaller window in which to visit my dad to avoid them as he has a lunch call and afternoon call besides the morning and bedtime call, they can also be running late or their schedule can change. I don't believe it would have any favorable effect on dads behavior towards his Carers anyway as he can just turn nasty for no reason something just mentioned on TV can set him off. Dad goes to bed at 9 pm and Carer attaches night catheter to day bag and helps him into pajamas. Dad rarely brushes his teeth and his fingernails are disgustingly long and dirty but he refuses to let me or anyone else cut them. Since the end of June my sister and I have really struggled to get along as far as me being blocked by her on WhatsApp which we had used daily to communicate lengthy messages. After June we just sent the very occasional short text. Its only been the last couple of weeks she seemed to have settled down a bit and re-opened WhatsApp although we have just emailed. Some of my dads Carers we have got to know pretty well now and I'd have thought at the moment with his behavior the Carers would really welcome one of us being there when we can. I have had a couple of Carers indicate in the past that dad is better sometimes if we are there and I'm sure they don't mind if we are unless I'm totally mistaken. I am now thinking perhaps I should contact the Care Company myself and ask before replying to her email if my visits are causing any problems for the Carers themselves and is it possible my visits are affecting dad and his attitude towards them. I will be surprised if they say that is the case but if so I will have to re-think my visits. It could just be my sister as she is very controlling and was very upset over my changing my visits to dad. I won't go into further detail but she wasn't kind, nice or understanding to me or my partner whom she's met only twice. I want to know what is likely to happen to dad, sister says they are currently saying that they will continue to provide care for now but if his behavior continues they may have to withdraw it. I am wondering if now is the time my sister and I should have a honest chat about the likelihood of dad going into a Care Home sooner rather than later. Its not what we wanted but there is no way either of us could care for dad much more than we are doing now and I fear his days living at home are numbered now. Can anyone advise or tell me the next stage we need to be looking at and who to approach. Dad doesn't own his home and therefore he would need funding from the Local Authority as would just be his pensions and a bit of his savings to be taken into account not any large amount of money to make him fully self funding if that's the correct term?

 

Hi Jessbow
Carer doesn't have time to cook dad a full breakfast he has a 45 minute morning call but is always soiled and will not have a bath or shower so strip wash can take up a lot of their time. Sausages are frozen and taken out day before but this weekend breakfast needed to be given by carer on Sunday sisterasked for porridge or beans on toast mindful of the limitation of their schedule. Dad not being happy kicked off verbally and carer relented and did him a breakfast of sausages egg and beans with toast. I will post result of my contact with Care Company below so hopefully will just need to enter once for everyone to follow. Thank you for your imput.

 

Hopefully this is correct way to add onto my original post. Thank you all for your feedback. I contacted dads Care Company and they called me back. I am told that their advice to sister was that dad needs to be reminded to be more respectful/nicer to his carers not sure how that works when his memory is bad and his temper flares. In the event his abusive outbursts continue or worsen and they find the carers cannot cope it would be them that would contact someone. I think our lack of Health and Welfare POA will have a bearing on decisions being made now. I believe she mentioned a Social Care worker would be first port of call for them and dad doesn't currently have one, she said that they wouldn't stop care just like that. Regarding the issue with my sister and her thoughts that my visits are causing problems she quite rightly said they cannot say when I visit dad or what I do when I am there and that it is for my sister and I to resolve our differences in our opinions on that. I was told that they are not aware that my visits are causing any issues with carers but if they did she would have informed me. I will politely inform my sister that I will continue to visit dad and feel free to offer him a tea etc whilst I am there. I almost feel that dads outbursts are now being played down a bit. I don't want to sound horrible as I love dad no one wants him stuck in a Care Home and be miserable but he's not exactly a Happy Bunny in his own home now. I suppose its in their interests to keep dad at home as he would need much more financial support to place him in a Care Home but in some ways I do think he needs more care than he is currently receiving as is alone for many hours including overnight. Dad has the maximum four calls per day including weekends. I don't want to come across as selfish but my life is being eaten up by dads dementia and not a hour goes by that he's not in my thoughts, a good nights sleep well that went long ago.

 

Hi All,
Apologies in advance for my rambling.
So unfortunately any discussion with my sister or anyone else suggesting that dad may actually be very close to being placed in a Care Home hasn't taken place.The day after her email informing me of the call from Care Company regarding dads continual verbal aggression towards carers I received three more emails plus texts from her each repetitively going over the same issues we have had since end of June 2019. This has served to make it almost impossible for us to communicate now as I am worn down by her continual battering and criticism of me. I was leaving my partner every other morning to care for dad when some mornings I really should have been home supporting partner as he hadn't always felt well.Trying to balance dad and my partners needs became more difficult and on reflection now perhaps I should have been more open with her but I really wanted to pull my weight and give the same care she afforded dad. Perhaps knowing how she has behaved now it will have made no difference as she shows no empathy for my partner. Sister complained throughout her emails and texts as she always does as to why could I not continue to go to dad and still do him his cooked breakfast. Any discussion of where we might go from here with dad should carers withdraw didn't even come up in her latest emails/texts only what she sees as lack of care from me based predominately on my not cooking his breakfast and relieving her from her mornings at dads. My sister told me I had put her in this position and she was now left with doing dads breakfast daily rather than alternate days as before. I have no doubt I have already mentioned some of this in my previous posts but in my head it goes round and round constantly as there is no relief from her bad feelings towards me.I feel now I have had no choice but to block her calls and negative texts of which there are many to my mobile since changing visits to dad. How can I communicate and discuss what might be best for dad when she is so bent on hurting me and doing her best to make me feel that I'm letting both her and dad down. I have said that she can leave any urgent messages on my landline which will be picked up by the answering machine and of course I will return her call. I have told her her texts and calls can't be received to my mobile any longer just in case she assumes I will get them when I won't. A fourth email received same day which to be honest I said I had deleted before reading did in fact tell me to only call her whilst she was at dads in future. It all sounds so stupid on the scale of things and creates a lot of unnecessary stress. Knowing dad has dementia and living with it and its effects that ripple out to all the family is hard enough without this bickering. I wish I could call her and have a good chat but she has shouted and screamed at me before so I don't want that to happen again.To put things in perspective more my partner aged 77 yrs had a Occupational Therapist visit our home on Monday and to reiterate he has had Parkinson's since 2008 it has been confirmed now he is classed as someone with a high risk of continual falling. Partner has had around nine falls in the last 5 months. Sister unfortunately only focuses on the couple of falls she knows of which were back in June/July and throws them back in my face saying just one or two falls and you do this to our dad meaning I should not have stopped going to his early morning, but any of partners falls could have caused a serious problem fortunately only bruises so far. I haven't discussed the visit from Occupational Therapist as I'm pretty sure she will show no interest.The Occupational Therapist confirmed partner should not be left alone in the house to have his shower in the morning and definitely not walk outside of our home alone but to use his mobility scooter which we purchased a couple of months back, wheelchair for town as scooter not collapsible.. My feelings back in June/July were and still are that my partner should not have to take dads dementia problems on board when he has his own medical issues, that doesn't mean he was not supportive when I went to dad in the mornings.I think its unfair of sister to expect my partner to rush in the morning not great with Parkinson's in order for me to leave him to drive to dad and don't feel he should risk being left to shower alone in house or indeed have to wait until I return from dads to get showered and dressed himself. My partner also has Postural Hypertension confirmed again by the latest blood pressure test Occupational Therapist did and its not helped by the large amount of medications he is on for the Parkinson's and heart issue last year. Our circumstances changed but sister's inability to see it was not deliberate on my part to change my visits means that the breakdown in our relationship is affecting our ability to communicate and work together regarding dads best interests. I am on Adult Social Care list alongside sister as dads Next Of Kin but if I contact them without discussing anything with her it will no doubt bounce back on me and she will hate me even more.The way I see it dad is lonely one minute but then hates company the next, has no bladder or bowel control, does nothing for himself not even getting a drink of water, cannot control his finances any longer or be responsible for his dog doesn't walk him anymore hasn't for a long time sister does in the morning but he swears he takes the dog out when having a conversation with myself or carers. I have said I will walk him but dad says once a day is enough. Dad has become more and more dependent on others without admitting or accepting it. I do dread going to see dad as I'm always unsure as to what his mood will be like but I still visit around five afternoons a week in the hope my visit will be pleasing to him but sometimes its not. Dad goes through spells when he thinks people are out to hurt him, kill him or want him to be dead including me, whilst driving him to do some shopping last week he said you won't kill me will you? although I think some of that was because it was heavy rain on journey. I do understand its his dementia but still it hurts. Its breaking my heart seeing him like this and obviously I do wonder if my sister will totally resist the idea that dad might actually benefit from and be happier in a Care Home sooner rather than later. I know it will take a lot for her to accept it might be the best thing for dad but in the days when we did speak we both discussed that dad will likely end his days in a Care Home. I have seen in his care book that carers are still reporting that dad is getting very agitated and still being verbally aggressive to carers with continual refusing of catheter emptying in afternoon and pad checks again afternoon. I had felt the same as sister once wanting dad to stay in his own council owned home as long as possible us doing what we could to assist in his care at home. My views seeing how the dementia is affecting dad and in turn us I am swaying towards the thought of dad being placed in a Care Home. I believe sister will just continue exhausting herself physically and mentally which means she will also continue blaming me for not supporting her more and replacing her at dads some mornings to do his breakfast which if I do will then leave my partner vulnerable. I can feel myself slipping back into a depressed state which is how I had been feeling just prior to the time my visits to dad changed. I had actually had some benefit from the changes too but the constant mental battering from sister is bringing me down again. In my head I am almost wanting a crisis to happen and for dad to be placed into 24/7 care now. I hope if that happens he will be happier, settled and looked after more than he is now which is what I think he really needs. For now I see no option other than to wait for crisis or for sister to say she cannot support dad in the manner in which she is doing and then it will become clear that dads care visits are probably not enough for him to stay in his own home any longer.