Its been a while since I posted but I need some advice. To recap quickly mum and dad both have dementia..dad Alzheimers and mum Vascular. They both live at home alone with no carers and the local Mental Health Unit sending someone in briefly every 2-3 weeks. None of us siblings live locally and I'm 1.5 hrs away. We take turns to phone every evening. Next week we have a 'catch up' meeting with the MHU and mum and dad both have a dementia apt with their consultant. At home things have been sliding gradually but its difficult to understand all that's going on with both mum and dad's memory problems. Dad has been ringing us a lot lately in the evenings saying lots of things about trying to get home and getting away from the woman he lives with(its mum but he cant recognise her always)and he has mentioned doing away with himself. Mum wont talk about it and cannot understand how to help dad because of her own situation and I guess by the time he rings us she has had problems with him all day. She refuses to come to the phone. Having said that she will not concede that she could do with help and we think the time has come once again to try to move onto the next stage.
My question is how do we do this? We tried just after Christmas to persuade mum to have a carer in but she refused. The MHU said that we couldn't do anything while she said no. WE tried to convince her to have one of those care things that you can buzz if you are in trouble but she refused. Its been another 7 months now and the decline in them both is evident. I feel like shouting 'I have two parents with this disease please help me!' but I fear it will fall on deaf ears. Surely two people living on their on with dementia warrants some attention? We need to be more forceful next week at our meeting to get help with the carer situation or whatever should come next. I'm actually jealous of two friends who have recently been able to get their one parent with dementia a carer, and feel much better for It, but in both these cases the parent has been compliant. My dad isn't getting the help and support at home that he needs as mum cant help him. We don't think that they eat properly. I'm sure even a friendly chat over a cup of tea with someone would help him greatly and us too. Can anyone suggest how to move forward? I just fear that the answer to our problems next week will just be we have to carry on as we are until something happens and I'm just tired of waiting for this 'something'. Many thanks for reading.
My question is how do we do this? We tried just after Christmas to persuade mum to have a carer in but she refused. The MHU said that we couldn't do anything while she said no. WE tried to convince her to have one of those care things that you can buzz if you are in trouble but she refused. Its been another 7 months now and the decline in them both is evident. I feel like shouting 'I have two parents with this disease please help me!' but I fear it will fall on deaf ears. Surely two people living on their on with dementia warrants some attention? We need to be more forceful next week at our meeting to get help with the carer situation or whatever should come next. I'm actually jealous of two friends who have recently been able to get their one parent with dementia a carer, and feel much better for It, but in both these cases the parent has been compliant. My dad isn't getting the help and support at home that he needs as mum cant help him. We don't think that they eat properly. I'm sure even a friendly chat over a cup of tea with someone would help him greatly and us too. Can anyone suggest how to move forward? I just fear that the answer to our problems next week will just be we have to carry on as we are until something happens and I'm just tired of waiting for this 'something'. Many thanks for reading.