Practical advice please, re stubborn parents and how best to help

angel73

Registered User
Oct 5, 2014
5
0
My Mum in Law is in the first throes of being diagnosed with Dementia, but is utterly stubborn and won't accept any help or contact from carers outside of the family (or also the family, if I am honest).

Despite her having 4 very grown up kids and many grandchildren who all attempt to check in on her - but she is also deaf which means that when anyone of us goes round to see her she cannot hear us knocking on the door, or phoning her. She has prescribed hearing aids and a phone that lights up when it rings but she still refuses to wear or position the phone in order to see them. One night, my other half phoned her 58 times....yet no response.

She recently had a significant fall (that we only discovered when we went round to see her 4 days later that we treated as she still had blood everywhere around her head and in her ear, but yet she didn't call on any of us to help her at the time and refused to go to hospital). Yet quite frankly, she should had been admitted to hospital for treatment as she had significant flesh wounds to the ear and also bruising to the skull), and recently has also been driven home by a very kind stranger as she got off at the wrong bus stop and couldn't find her way home.

We always check her fridge as many products fall out of date and she doesn't realise and we wouldn't like to see her getting ill over food use by times as she is a wee little sparrow of a lady and we don't think she would survive a bout of food poisoning. She truly doesn't know what one day is to the next, let alone the month.

As we live closest to her, it has fallen on my other half and I to try to make sure that utility bills gets paid monthly but we don't know how to approach her bank accordingly to do ensure that her direct debits to various services are paid, do we need some form of permission to do so? As recently we have found that her weekly/monthly bills are not being paid because she forgets what day/week it is which means she has amassed significant debts or have lost her most basic utilities because she forgets to pay her bills on time.

Am sorry that our posting has been such a long one, but we wish to help her so much but know that in realistic circumstances we feel that we can do so little. So any similar experiences and advice that anyone has had, would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance