Just need someone to talk to

[crackingup]

Hello everyone. This is my first post. I phoned my mum tonight and the neighbour was there with her son. They'd found mum in the street trying to get a taxi home. This is the first time I've known her to do this, although the neighbour said there had been other occasions too. I don't know why they hadn't told me before. Anyway, when I spoke to mum she was so confused it was just awful, so upsetting. Mum's mental state has been deteriorating over the last 18 months or so and now it has reached a point where we really need to do something. She has carers three times a day, I'm there two days a week and my brother pops up at the weekend to do the shopping. The rest of the time, she lives alone.
I have tried in the past to get mum to go and spend a bit of respite time with my dad who lives in a nearby care home. It's a nice place, and he's well looked after. He's not in good health and uses a wheelchair now. However, mum is convinced that dad has walked out on her to go and live in residential care and she wants to divorce him! So she seldom sees him now (she refuses to go) and when she does, she's really horrible to him. I do understand that she feels he has abandoned her, but it's pretty tough on dad.
So I'm feeling horribly guilty and really stressed about the whole situation. I live 100 miles away, which makes everything even more horrendous. I have asked mum to live with me, although we'd need to make some big changes to the house, but she says she doesn't want to and I actually think she'd be so disorientated by the move that it would be really difficult for her. She's 93 and has lived in the same area in the same town all her life. How can I persuade her that a move to residential care might be a good idea? That she'd have people to talk to and her husband (!) and we'd all visit just as much and do all the same things - lunches, hairdressers and so on. I'd really appreciate some help if anyone has been in the same situation.

 

[Quilty]

It might be time to make the decision for her as its siunds like she is no longer safe. Could she move to a care home near you? If i were you i would get the gp and social services involves asap. Its a shame she cant be with your dad but you need to protect him too.

 

[theunknown]

I was able to ignore what was going on with my mum because I saw very little of her, so most of our communication was by phone. I knew something was wrong, but I put it down to the high dose of steriods she'd been prescribed very quickly (there was an initial diagnosis of steriod psychosis. Luckily for my mum (and me), she lived in a village where her neighbours look out for each other. I'd told her several years ago that if the need arose I would have her live with me. The whole thing was taken out of my hands as she ended up sectioned and needed full-time care over a very short space of time. I now know that if it wasn't for the neighbours watching over her behaviour she'd probably have had to leave her home at least a year ago.

Your mum might be trying cover up how unhappy she is because she's still rational enough to understand what a care home is. I'm sure now that my mum must have been terrified for several months. She must have known something was wrong but she never got a diagnosis from either the memory clinic or from a brain scan, so she was operating in a strange world, and didn't know why. For you and your family, you are also suffering from this impossible situation, and for your mum's sake you have to put yourselves first, or you'll end up being not able to help because you'll be going through your own mental health problems. I think we underestimate sometimes how much physical stress impacts on the way our brain operates. It's easier to deal with emotional stress if we do it when we see the first signs of it. There are organisations, such as Alzheimers UK, who have helplines and will be able to help with information about how to deal with the care home situation and how you can help your mum. You are definately not on your own with this. Thousands of people in the UK are also dealing with the same situation. All our experiences are unique to the individual, but although rationally we realise its happening to lots of other people, it doesn't feel like it - until you come on a forum like this . It makes such a difference to actually communicate with people who know what you're going through.

So welcome to the forum. You'll find so much great advice on here. I certainly have x

 

[crackingup]

It's just so fantastic to have people to talk to about all of this. I'm going to call Social Services first thing tomorrow and see what they have to say. I'll post an update.

 

[JusticeforOne]

This is very similar to the situation we had with my father in law. He was living with his wife, she had vascular dementia and he has Alzheimer's. We tried everything to get them to move up to us in the North (they lived in the South) but it was impossible. Sadly his wife got very ill and had to go to a nursing home and eventually died. On the advice of the social services, we left him in familiar territory to grieve with carers going in. It went from bad to worse, he flooded the house, got rats, so despite advice we were given we went to collect him and found a place in sheltered accommodation near us. Sadly that disorientated him even further to the point where the other residents got a petition to get him out, which was when we moved him into a residential home.

I'm trying to work out how our experience could benefit you really, I think what I am saying is that it had to get worse before it got better. He has found a niche in his home, he looks after the ladies, pulling chairs out for them, helping them cut their food up etc. Not entirely helpful, but it was the role he had with his wife and he is happy there.

Unless she is sectioned, I'm not sure what you can do against her will, we certainly wore ourselves out with the persuasion tactics. We did like you think they could have moved in with us, but in hindsight, we wouldn't have been able to care for them properly as we both work full time. I don't think it would be easy for either you or your mum with this option, it's a 24hr job looking after someone with dementia and despite initially thinking we were totally against residential care, in the end it was the kindest thing for all concerned xxx