Moving Mum in with me and being made redundant in the same week

[AmandaRose]

I was made redundant last Tuesday and in the same week decided that my Mother, who has been living with Alzheimer's for the last 5 years can no longer cope living at home by herself (she lives 140 miles from me). In one sense losing my job was fortunate in that I can look after her during the day in the short term but I will need to find another job to pay my mortgage within 3 months and don't know what to do about care then? I am obviously pretty stressed at the moment. I should add that Mum keeps insisting that she must go back to her own home but she is now becoming a danger to herself.
I live in Evesham, Worcestershire and one option would be to pay for home care (Mum's savings mean that we are not entitled to free care) but wondered if there are any nearby day centres (like children's nurseries) where I could drop her in the morning and pick her up after work in the evening as she is still very sociable. Am I being naive? do these sorts of places exist? Do nursing homes offer patient care on a daily basis? Are there any near Evesham.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated

 

[Stresshead]

Hi Amanda Rose. It sounds likes you have had quite a week!! I understand your predicament in that I moved my dad 140 miles away from his home to live with us where there was no friends or family to help out with his daily care. Myself and my husband work full time and leaving dad at home all day on his own was not an option for a number of reasons. I don't live in your area but I would assume the process would be fairly similar. I contacted social services and they put me in touch with a group of people called Neighbourhood Connectors. They were able to tell me of local luncheon clubs and also advised me of free community transport ( I just had to arrange a local buspass). My dad is also very sociable and so now every day he gets picked up by the bus at about 9.30am, goes to his club where he meets people, plays bingo and cards (although he probobly has no real idea what he is doing he doesn't care) gets tea and biscuits on tap and a two course lunch for about £4 a day. The bus picks him up again at 2pm and he is normally home between 2 and 3. He absolutely loves it and looks forward to it every day. I did enquire about a more structured day centre at a care home where he would be picked up at 8.30am and dropped off again at 5.30pm but this would have cost £1000 a month !!!!!
I would definitely try Social Services as a starting point.
Good luck with this and with your job hunt. Take care xx

 

[Beate]

You need to phone adult social services. I don't know what's available in your area but day centres on the whole do exist and the rest of the day could be plugged with sitting services. That's what I did and it worked well. Don't forget to claim carers allowance while you are earning less than £100 a week - every little helps.

 

[Chemmy]

This looks like the sort of thing you're looking for:

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/herefordshireandworcestershire/active-ageing/church-street-centre-evesham/

Also ask around or Google all the local care homes - my MIL's one in Gloucestershire offers day care and could be a good way to suss out its suitability for a future placement, either permanent or respite.

 

[Hibni]

I was made redundant last Tuesday and in the same week decided that my Mother, who has been living with Alzheimer's for the last 5 years can no longer cope living at home by herself (she lives 140 miles from me). In one sense losing my job was fortunate in that I can look after her during the day in the short term but I will need to find another job to pay my mortgage within 3 months and don't know what to do about care then? I am obviously pretty stressed at the moment. I should add that Mum keeps insisting that she must go back to her own home but she is now becoming a danger to herself.
I live in Evesham, Worcestershire and one option would be to pay for home care (Mum's savings mean that we are not entitled to free care) but wondered if there are any nearby day centres (like children's nurseries) where I could drop her in the morning and pick her up after work in the evening as she is still very sociable. Am I being naive? do these sorts of places exist? Do nursing homes offer patient care on a daily basis? Are there any near Evesham.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated

I live in Evesham too. Age UK run a Dementia day centre but it is quite expensive. My Mum has mild AZ and isn't interested in attending the day centre although we did call in last year when they had an open day. I think there is a cheaper centre in Pershore.

There is a monthly Dementia Cafe which we have started to attend. Worcestershire Association of Carers (http://www.carersworcs.org.uk/) run a number of courses for Carers that I found useful (but not as useful as TP!)

I don't know which GP you have but so far I have found Mum's GP very supportive. Mum signed a form giving permission for the staff to speak to me which at least means I don't have trouble getting past the receptionists!

I haven't investigated local nursing homes as Mum lives with us and we arrange for a friend/carer to stay if we want to go away.

I feel that there is a lot of support in this area, but so far I haven't needed to put it to the test. Do pm if you want more info.

Heather