Mum has been in a care home for about 5 months now. She was previously sectioned on S2 then S3 and it took most of the 9 months she was in hospital to diagnose her. She was very paranoid, delusions of grandeur, physically violent, hallucinations. She was eventually diagnosed as having dementia with Lewy Bodies. It was a hell of an experience with her being violent and abusive towards me after 47 years of a very loving and close relationship.
Neither myself nor the hospital could see any alternative except a nursing home. She had lived for the last 42 years in a housing association home and I was told by the social worker that I had to give notice as mum was receiving housing benefit for it. I then had to clear the house.
Mum was hallucinating very badly when she went into the home and I really don't think she knew where she was for a few months. She was always taken up with talking to people who weren't there that she didn't notice her surroundings.
The last couple of months the hallucinations have gone and she is painfully aware that she is in a nursing home and is never going home. I haven't said this to her but she has either worked it out for herself or has been told this by someone else. She seems so much better, a few outbursts of anger at times but only at the situation she is in.
I just feel that we have made a dreadful mistake. I am not even convinced by the diagnosis as mum has suffered from depression and anxiety all her life and it seemed like a very sudden descent into dementia. LB dementia is known for its fluctuations in awareness, but she has now been like this for the last couple of months. She says she misses us so much and cries whenever I go to see her. Her funding is co reed by S117. If I take her out and have her live with me and she gets bad again I cannot afford to put her back into residential care without that support. More importantly I have a daughter who should not be exposed to mum at her worst. I just feel that what I have seen in the last couple of months, mum would have been able to cope at her home with the right support and now I have given away her home of so many years.
Neither myself nor the hospital could see any alternative except a nursing home. She had lived for the last 42 years in a housing association home and I was told by the social worker that I had to give notice as mum was receiving housing benefit for it. I then had to clear the house.
Mum was hallucinating very badly when she went into the home and I really don't think she knew where she was for a few months. She was always taken up with talking to people who weren't there that she didn't notice her surroundings.
The last couple of months the hallucinations have gone and she is painfully aware that she is in a nursing home and is never going home. I haven't said this to her but she has either worked it out for herself or has been told this by someone else. She seems so much better, a few outbursts of anger at times but only at the situation she is in.
I just feel that we have made a dreadful mistake. I am not even convinced by the diagnosis as mum has suffered from depression and anxiety all her life and it seemed like a very sudden descent into dementia. LB dementia is known for its fluctuations in awareness, but she has now been like this for the last couple of months. She says she misses us so much and cries whenever I go to see her. Her funding is co reed by S117. If I take her out and have her live with me and she gets bad again I cannot afford to put her back into residential care without that support. More importantly I have a daughter who should not be exposed to mum at her worst. I just feel that what I have seen in the last couple of months, mum would have been able to cope at her home with the right support and now I have given away her home of so many years.