Can I get emergency help for elderly parent (have also posted in elderly parents)

[LondonJax]

I’ve been trawling around the internet trying to find an answer to an urgent question but I’m either not asking the right question or I’m going to the wrong places. So can any MNs help me?
Background stuff first so I hopefully won’t be drip feeding. My mum is in her eighties, she has diabetes and injects insulin twice a day. She had a heart attack last year and had a stent fitted so also takes Warfarin and another three or four tablets a day. I set out her weekly tablet box, she administers from that. I also do her weekly shopping for her or take her to the shops if she’s up to it.
A couple of weeks ago she had a problem with her right leg which the GP diagnosed as sciatica. She was on medication but it made her woozy so she’s just resting the leg and using paracetomol now on doctor’s orders. Last week I took her to the GP as she was slurring her words and her face was twisting. He confirmed that it wasn’t a stroke – I’d done the FAST test they talk about on the TV and she was able to pass that easily so I guessed it wasn’t. The GP believed it was a trapped nerve which will go over time.
Usually mum looks after herself (apart from appointments and the shop/meds stuff that I do) so we’re very lucky. She lives in a council run sheltered housing scheme near me – we got her a place last year as she was over a hundred miles away previously. She’s on state pension, no proper savings (less than £5K). She cooks for herself and does her own laundry. The sheltered housing has one of those emergency help line via a pendant schemes.
BUT, and this is the reason for the post, on Friday I had a call from her around 4pm. She’d had a bad fall at about 3pm in her kitchen. She says she either blacked out or her leg went, she definitely didn’t trip as she was standing near the counter top at the time and wasn’t walking. She went down, pulled crockery and the kettle down with her – luckily that was lukewarm or it could have been horrendous. She didn’t have her emergency line pendant on. It was in the bedroom! She has been unceremoniously told off over this weekend about that. When she came round in the kitchen she slid herself into her living room to call me – she was on the floor for over an hour in total as she had to slide and stop because of the pain in her back and leg.
I called an ambulance, they confirmed that she hadn’t broken anything but was shaky and had bruised her leg and coccyx badly. They didn’t take her to hospital.
I’m in the middle of 12 week building job at my house at the moment – we have rubble, dust and channels for heating pipes in the floor plus no ceiling in areas and no downstairs loo so my sister took my mum to hers for the weekend. But, she has to go to work this week and there’s no one at her house to look after mum. She lives an hour away and I have a six year old and a DH who has got to go abroad on business tomorrow night. He’s already cancelled the meeting once as I had a back injury a couple of weeks ago (we’re a really healthy family at the moment) so he can’t cancel again – his company’s bidding for a multi million pound project and he’s heading it up.
At my sister’s my mum needed help getting out of bed to get to the loo, couldn’t walk to get a drink on her own and can’t lower herself into a chair properly – her lower back and buttock on the right is bruised and very sore. So she now has a sciatic problem in the left leg and a badly bruised right leg so walking is very hard.
When hubby goes tomorrow evening there is no one available to look after my six year old so I’ve either got to get mum in bed by 6.30pm or drag my DS out to get her to bed later and he has school to attend so can’t be late to bed. I can’t get round in the morning until 9.30am after school drop off so mum will be without food or drink from 6.30pm ish til 9.30am each morning and I don’t even want to think about the loo situation as my head is about to explode with just the rest of it!
We thought we could leave her a sandwich and a flask for warm drinks overnight but she has arthritis so she can’t get the lid off (sister tried it this morning) and if we leave the lid loose enough for her the drink’s cold within an hour.
I’m taking her to the GP tomorrow to start the ball rolling about whether the slurry speech (which she had when she called me from the floor on Friday) has actually contributed to the fall and will ask him for referrals for help. But what should I ask for?
Ideally I’d like something like a respite care place for a week or two so she can get her legs back working. Once she’s on her feet she can cook, get to the loo and get herself a drink. We can do the rest like laundry, shopping etc. And I can pop in each morning to check that she’s OK, once DS is safely off to school.
If we can’t get that we need someone who can get in early evening to help with a hot meal and making sure she gets a hot drink and, if possible, someone to help her get to bed as I’m under the physio for my back at the moment so lifting her will be fun (not).
If I didn’t have my six year old I’d be able to do a lot of it but I can’t. Added to which, he has a heart condition so sleep and keeping warm are important – dragging him out in this weather to get his nan to bed later than 6.30pm just isn’t going to happen.
So, what do I do? Where can I go to get a couple of weeks help quickly – I’ve got to have something sorted out by tomorrow evening if possible or she’s on her own until Tuesday morning. I don’t know who to ask or what to ask for and time is against me so I don’t want the run around of calling umpteen departments. Any ideas?
Sorry for the long post but, as I said, I don’t want to drip feed so I hope I’ve covered everything.
Thank you!

[quoteunquote]

It sounds as if she needs a nursing home, she certainly needs care at the moment.

[LondonJax]

Hi quoteunquote,

I managed to get hold of the emergency social work team for adult services on Sunday, thanks to a few replies on mumsnet.

On Monday I got a call from the Enablement team - they come in to do meals and personal care for four weeks or so. They'll do the cooking or help whilst the person cooks or just stand by to help if that's what the person wants - just helping to keep them out of hospital.

They are coming in three times a day from today, Tuesday. They've arranged for mum to get a perch stool for washing in the bathroom, a commode so she isn't trapsing to the loo in the night, a raised loo seat and a bed lever to help herself out of bed.

The GP has ordered urine and blood tests to check for infections causing the confusion and dizziness and has also arranged a referral to older person psychiatric team to check if there is any early dementia signs in case an infection is hiding something more - as she said the sooner dementia is identified (if it's there) the sooner services can get into place.

The GP also contacted the rapid response social care section and they contacted the intermediate care team who normally only get involved when someone has been in hospital. They rang me to say they will arrange to see her next week when the bruising has subsided to see if physio is needed.

I'm amazed how all the services are contacting each other and moving mum through the system. We have care in the home at the moment and services ready to step in once she's through the initial stage. So two days after I posted she seems to be getting a lot of help.

The GP has said she wants to keep mum out of hospital as acute wards are often, by their nature, full of people with infections even in the cleanest wards - visitors bring in colds and flu even before they know they have them for example. If mum does have an infection herself she's vulnerable to more. The GP feels she's better off with support in an environment that mainly has germs she's immune to rather than putting in with germs her body isn't capable of fighting at the moment.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all the above will work.

[quoteunquote]

Oh good that sounds like a really good start.

[LovePotatoes]

Hello. Once the 4 week enablement package has finished if your Mum is still needing help she could have carers go in up to four times a day if needed. Social services would prob.have to reassess the situaion at that time or so. The carer could even help your MUm get into bed/showering etc
All the best