How long to find a nursing home for someone with challenging behaviour

Clemmy

Registered User
Aug 14, 2015
15
0
Surrey
Hi

I wondered if anyone has had recent experience of how long it takes to find a suitable nursing home for an 85 year old female relative with challenging - but not unmanageable - behaviour. She has both Alzheimers and Vascular Dementia - but is otherwise too active for her own good. She will be self funding. I have visited a number of homes already as I wanted to understand the difference between their offerings/capabilities. Ideally I want to find somewhere on the smaller scale, on one level, with nursing and end of life (so we don't have to move her more than once). The one EMI I visited seemed to think my relative would be already too challenging for them - and reading some posts on this forum homes seem increasingly unhappy to take anyone with any potential to be challenging or indeed a back catalogue of challenging behaviour (usually timed with the arrival of a UTI infection). And this is from homes that say they do dementia!!??!!!

My aunt has been cared for at home amazingly well by a fantastic live in carer and a carer who gives 14 hours respite a week - we are coming to the end of the road in her own home, and have no choice but to move her in next 6-9 months. I am trying to plan carefully as far ahead as I can. I hope I have enough time....

Thanks for the feedback.
 

jaymor

Registered User
Jul 14, 2006
15,604
0
South Staffordshire
Hi Clemmy,

My husband needed a nursing home offering care for challenging behaviour. We found only two such homes in our county. Someone was looking down on us as one was just 10 minutes drive away from our home.

He entered the home being assessed as needing 1:1 care 24 hours a day. He was on a floor with 8 other men and there were 5 carers plus a senior for the 9 men.

These homes are very much in demand but are few and far between. We found several saying challenging behaviour but when we went to visit they only took adults with learning difficulties with challenging behaviour, not dementia.

Unfortunately I live no where near you so am of very little use to you other than to say keep looking, we looked at over 20 homes before we found the right one.
 

fizzie

Registered User
Jul 20, 2011
2,725
0
To find a good home I would go to a carers cafe in the area and speak face to face with carers who have local knowledge. It is the quickest easiest way to get good local info as many of the carers have people in homes - at least they do at our carers cafe

If your relatives behaviour is challenging because of UTIs can you not get the doc to prescribe low dose daily antibiotics to see if this will eliminate the behaviour before you have to move her. I know others have found this useful and for my mum it stopped recurring Utis and we never saw another one. Then you may not be struggling so much with finding a specialist home

That is very weird that they say they are specialists and don't understand the impact of UTIs on behaviour - I don't think i'd chose them anyway!!!
Good luck
 

doodle1

Registered User
May 11, 2012
257
0
Can I ask what you mean by challenging behaviour? Do you mean violence,aggression, difficulty in persuading them to have a shower? Is she on any medication for it ?what does the memory clinic say about the behaviour? I am not suggesting anti psychotic drugs but at the beginning we found Citalopram an anti depressant had a good effect on mums violence and aggression.
And in what way is she too active for her own good?
I agree with Fizzie re finding a home- you will need to visit as many as possible to get the one that feels right. And the care is more important than the smartness of the place.
Could you not look for a place where she could possibly start as residential and then move upstairs to an Emi unit on site?
 

jasmineflower

Registered User
Aug 27, 2012
335
0
Hi Clemmy
We discovered very early on not to take any notice when the nursing homes said dementia under their specialist categories. Many of the ones we visited were totally ill equipped to cope with a PWD who wandered, sundowned or was a serious falls risk. The care homes didn't have high enough staff to patient ratios and the nursing homes really wanted people who would stay in a chair or bed.

We found our local Alzheimer's support worker to be invaluable. She guided us to a great local home who really did "what it said on the tin". I don't think we would have found this home without assistance, so the advice to join dementia cafes and carers groups is a really good idea. You need to ask people who understand what you are looking for.

J xx
 

Lmangan

Registered User
Mar 18, 2016
1
0
Hi Clemmy
We discovered very early on not to take any notice when the nursing homes said dementia under their specialist categories. Many of the ones we visited were totally ill equipped to cope with a PWD who wandered, sundowned or was a serious falls risk. The care homes didn't have high enough staff to patient ratios and the nursing homes really wanted people who would stay in a chair or bed.

We found our local Alzheimer's support worker to be invaluable. She guided us to a great local home who really did "what it said on the tin". I don't think we would have found this home without assistance, so the advice to join dementia cafes and carers groups is a really good idea. You need to ask people who understand what you are looking for.

J xx
Hi,

Glad you finally found a suitable home. I live near Watford, Hertfordshire, my Mum is in hospital and so far has been turned down on assessment for EMI Nursing home as too high risk from falls, My local Alzheimer's society was unfortunately of no help whatsoever, if anyone knows of any homes nearby that will take residents at high risk of falls, please let me know. Any help would be appreciated, as I just seem to be going round in circles. thank you
 

Kevinl

Registered User
Aug 24, 2013
6,064
0
Salford
Hi

I wondered if anyone has had recent experience of how long it takes to find a suitable nursing home for an 85 year old female relative with challenging - but not unmanageable - behaviour. QUOTE]

The problem is that's how she is now, what will the situation be in the future?
If she's "challenging" now you don't know what you kind of a home may be looking for in the 6 to 9 months time you mention.
As has been said you need some local knowledge and the local AZ society, UGEUK or dementia café or club may be a good place to start asking.
K