Mum has vascular dementia and Alzheimers. Dad is her carer. Mum has been deteriorating a lot in last six months and experiencing sundowning and sporadic loss of awareness of time and place. Mornings are definitely better than afternoons and evenings. Dad is doing an amazing job caring for her, but he is at the stage now where he is not able to cope with Mum's difficult behaviour day after day. We currently have a private carer who comes in twice a week to give Dad a bit of time out. The medical professionals (who tend to see Mum in the mornings or early afternoon!) say that Mum is still able to make decisions for herself, meaning that she can say no to additional care, or to a period of respite care etc. This is absolutely not the case though for long periods every day, when it can take us hours to calm her down and keep her safe. We have had crises where Mum has come to stay with me (son) for a few days to give a longer break. We are doing that again now after a meltdown yesterday. We live 2 hours away, so not easy to pop round and help.
My query is, is there anything we can do to put respite care in place for Mum, if the medical professionals judge that she still has mental capacity to make decisions? I understand we cannot place Mum in a nursing home against her will. Has anyone got experience of this sort of situation? What has worked for you? I know in an absolute emergency there is sectioning if that is the only way of keeping Mum safe, but there must be something else too? Need to find some solutions, to give Dad more breaks.
Thank you
My query is, is there anything we can do to put respite care in place for Mum, if the medical professionals judge that she still has mental capacity to make decisions? I understand we cannot place Mum in a nursing home against her will. Has anyone got experience of this sort of situation? What has worked for you? I know in an absolute emergency there is sectioning if that is the only way of keeping Mum safe, but there must be something else too? Need to find some solutions, to give Dad more breaks.
Thank you