sandwich final trigger for home ... DF had an unexplained crash - went over the course of a couple of days from being able to take himself out by bus for appointments and shopping, to being unable to bear his own weight, enormously swollen legs, delusions. Hospital got most of his physical health back, and some of his mental health (no delusions, but more confused than previously) and he returned home with a stairlift and a care package + meals on wheels. But wasn't coping, falls every few weeks (and bashing his head on the way down), eating biscuits instead of making sandwiches, not going to bed but dozing in chair downstairs. This was a decline over 3 months.
Then after another fall, district nurse declared he wasn't safe on his own (and I declined the opportunity to sleep on the living room floor to be with him) so she asked him whether he thought it might be time to move to a home and he confounded us all by saying "I think it's well overdue". So - emergency admission 4 hours later to the only place with a vacancy.
Positives: he is healthier - he'd lost 2 stone over the last 3 months, he has put that back on again. Legs no longer swollen. Long standing bedsores cleared up (they turn him in the night, and badger him to stand up and move around in the day). And I get glimpses of the old father, and visits when we just chat (instead of just a long list of the things he wants doing to the house ... like fastening the wardrobe to the wall so he can use the doorknob to pull himself out of bed).
Home isn't what I would have chosen - no grounds, just a small patio, small rooms, and mainly dementia patients. But it's small enough that the staff all know DF, and indeed me, and many of them seem genuinely to like DF. Manager is very much in evidence. And they cater to DF's dietary fads, making special meals if he doesn't like what's on offer. He's clearly on the way out (he's nearly 100 so not surprising) but he seems happy there, so I'm not planning to move him.