My mum has dementia. She is trying desperately to live independently in Thorne in South Yorkshire, (about 75 miles away from where I live), because she still has a few friends in that area. She loses her keys and they are later found in a bag of peas in the freezer. She tells me (Kate) about Kate (me) and Allan (my husband) taking her for a ride out somewhere a few days ago. She sends a card to her new grandson and writes 'from Auntie Kathleen' on it. She telephones three times in the space of three hours on Friday and asks me the exact same questions each time having no recollection of the previous conversations. She asks approximately every 15 minutes what day it is. She can't understand that her gas-fired central heating boiler has absolutely nothing to do with her electric fire. She has difficulty doing simple things like opening jars and bottles etc. because her hands are crippled with arthritis,never mind all the other chores needed around the home. Myself and my sister (who also lives some distance away) and my niece, (who lives in the same town but has a new baby to look after and a full-time very demanding job) are doing the best we can to support her. We approached Doncaster Social Services for support; they asked 'Can she dress herself?' Yes, she can. They asked 'Can she feed herself?' Yes, she can (but doesn't always). Having answered yes to those two questions they were not interested in anything else and are not prepared to offer any support whatsoever. Doncaster Mental Health in the Elderly came to assess mum and deemed her dementia to be 'mild' because she scored a certain number on a set of ridiculous questions. Despite the fact that the result showed a marked deterioration since her last assessment, that dementia is a condition which is only going to get worse, they do not intend to visit mum again. They are too busy, they say, to monitor people like mum who have dementia. We pay for someone to visit mum every day to check that she is ok, to ensure that she takes her meds because without them, she would be (an avoidable admission) in hospital and is classed as a vulnerable adult; I should have said at the start that in addition to dementia mum has epilepsy, has mini-strokes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diverticular disease and LGL syndrome (which means her bone-marrow does not produce any white blood cells meaning that she has no natural immune system - she has to have injections on a regular basis to make her bone barrow produce the white blood cells - it's like leukaemia. These injections keep her alive but also give her unpleasant 'flu'-like symptoms for a few days). She is no longer physically able to walk much further than the local newsagent's across the road and most days sees nobody other than the home help. I'd really like it if this comment (and subsequent comments re mum) could somehow end up coming to the attention of someone who might be in a position to do something about the dreadful situation in which my mum and many other elderly people find themselves; not ready to go into a care home but needing much more support than is on offer in order to be able to live independently.