Older people rebel to keep sense of control, research finds

So true. Is it this particular generation many of whom have been able to do pretty much what they want?

My mum certainly lands in that generation of cheap housing, good pensions etc.

It’s not at all funny. Nobody wants to say it but the sort of situations discussed here are why the NHS is about to combust, and A&E is completely overwhelmed and unable to send ambulances to very sick children.

My grandparents were the same - I adored them and we were very close, but they were completely stubborn and selfish and refused to leave their enormous and impractical home until it was far too late, even then it was only to an assisted flat when it was very clear they needed a proper care home (and had plenty of money to do this). Granddad ended up in hospital after yet another fall and despite there being nothing wrong with my gran she ended up bed blocking as a ‘social patient’ for 3 weeks because she couldn’t go home without him.

Eventually granddad died before leaving the hospital, very distressed that he didn’t know where my gran would go from there and how she would cope with a new setting without him. She did end up moving into a care home but had they done this a few years before, maybe the fall would’ve been avoided, granddad could’ve died with his wife by his side rather than across the other side of the hospital, and she would’ve already been settled in.

They were very wealthy individuals but out of sheer pride didn’t want to end up ‘in a home’ and instead would phone family every time there was a medical emergency, meaning everyone had to take it in turns to drop what they were doing and drive out to them at 2am. Caused a lot of arguments and exhausted everyone for a handful of years.

It’s incredibly selfish and I think we need to be more honest with the elderly about the effect they have on those around them.

I’m past laughing - lots more going on in our situation that I won’t bore everyone with, but yy to solidarity!

We have to try and laugh though or we'd end up in a sobbing heap , solidarity everyone on here

The 90-something in our family is currently in hospital waiting for a care package after having yet another bad fall - this could be months, and she’s obviously not happy at all. She’s refused to entertain care packages before now, and relies on friends and neighbours locally to help her in emergencies and for us to rearrange work etc to drive 1.5 hours to her. She refused to move closer to us, so her independence is facilitated by the goodwill of others. Her lack of personal responsibility also costs the NHS a huge amount of resources.

While this article might be entertaining the reality is far from funny.

What I'm finding hard is DMs reluctance to compromise or accept less than perfection. She can't achieve these things herself so relies on others to make it happen to her very exacting standards. She'll throw a party when I'm there, so I can do all the work. She's headed home on the train, with assistance booked, but will expect everything to run like clockwork. If there's a delay or a problem of any kind, even if resolved, she'll 'never use the train again'. I tend to regard any journey that ends with me arriving at the destination as a success. She only regards it a success if she was exactly on time, in her preferred seat, with congenial company, met at the platform by someone with time to help her into the house with her 53 bags. She's not grasped the need to travel light when you are relying on others to manage your luggage for you.
Sigh.

Sierra sorry to hear you are ill. Most of the people I contacted was via message anyway, plus I wanted the rates and conditions written down anyway. Could you do that to get someone to see her?

sorry to all dealing with this. I think that headline really pissed me off because of the unspoken bit...it should say "they rebel to get control of others who have to run around after them". Not saying it's intentional, only two possible incidents with my olds, the last being the one I described here, no excuse for dragging me across counties when my sister was already there.

That might be an error of judgment, I also have vertigo and perhaps she panicked and my sister is the one who should have held back on the phone call. I always panic when I have vertigo, I understand it.

i did have another chat with mum today which some might consider harsh. I said she has a pattern that when I get home, she is always on at me about when my next visit is.

she has admitted this is not about "needing' anything, she just wants me around. I love my mum to bits and wouldn't mind daily visits, but the travel is impossible to keep doing. Of course part of the issue there is that for many people in my age group, 2 hours door to door is a normal commute.

I blame the overachievers. In the family circle there are lots of people working, commuting, looking after parents and children and still going to the bloody gym. Mum has one neighbour in her 30s who helps mum with shopping. She is a lovely lady but she had a rant one day about lazy people at her work - and everything she said described me to a T!

I think the hardest thing both with my own parents and then with my MIL was to get them to accept carers.

With my DPs (DM had dementia and DF was looking after her) we had a lovely GP, who was really on top of things, and once the care visits were set up everything was fine.

MIL has been much more complicated, her Alzheimer's suddenly got so bad last year and she became convinced we were gaslighting her, hiding things, coming into the house at night etc, so it was impossible to help her. The GP had to get involved and referred her to the community dementia team, and matters were out of our hands.

I was visiting a friend in hospital last year and there was an old lady with severe Alzheimer's in a side ward. She was there because her daughter was elsewhere in the hospital following a heart attack - in her 50s! Her mum had been living with her and her family (two teenagers) and there was nowhere else to put her when the daughter collapsed.

@EmmaAgain22 @Coxspurplepippin @SierraSapphire and all of you, you must all look after yourselves and you must absolutely not feel guilty about stepping back occasionally (although it is so hard to do) or feel that you are failing in any way because you can't manage. I always found the staff, especially those in the dementia team, were incredibly supportive and understanding of what we were going through they see so many families going through this. I hope that this will be your experience too, although I'm afraid to say that sourcing care, whether at home or in a residential setting, has never been harder, I can't imagine how many people are at breaking point dealing with elderly parents.

for everyone.

Mine's being unreasonable again. Said I only see her twice a year. I actually spent most of my annual leave with her. It's over a week at Christmas, including six or twelve hours of driving. Plus a similar in the summer. And a few days spring and autumn.

Hours on the phone every week.

SierraSapphire, Emma both. I sometimes end up feeling like the most appalling bully - DParent won't drink enough, leading to repeated UTIs, falls and kidney issues. I understand why, they're not too steady on their feet and hate getting up and down to go to the loo, but they nearly died this time last year due to sepsis following a UTI.

I ended up having a horrible conversation about it being me who always has to deal with the fallout, me who spends hours sitting by hospital beds, me who has the worry and the heartache of it all. DH is spectacularly good and kind -DParent lives with us and he's never, ever complained at how much of my day is spent with them doing the washing, dressing, getting meals, making sure they can reach the loo in time and just spending time with them watching TV, not to mention the paperwork and phone calls. But I did point out to DParent that it's pressure on me, emotionally, physically, financially (I don't work f/t because of their needs). The only thing they need to do is make sure they drink 4x300ml cups of tea a day to stay hydrated and they can't even do that........

I think she gets it more now because I became absolutely hysterical, I was so upset.

Emma - I've been hysterical a few times over the past four years myself. I once lay on the hospital floor shaking after overbalancing when I was trying to get the side down from mums bed. It was 2 am in the morning. I had a nonnegotiable work deadline the next day and my mum didn't want me to leave. The nurses thought I was having an epileptic fit but I was just having a panic attack. It's horrible. It's happened a few other times. I always end up feeling that I am committing elder abuse, though I am not abusive. I'm just distressed but in the end it makes it worse because I feel as though I have to apologise because she is more vulnerable than me. On other occasions when I have been trying to persuade her to get carers, she's said she can cope and I have cried and said I can't, but this doesn't seem to make any difference to her. She has finally accepted she needs carers and I was going to sort something out this week, but now I've got Covid and my voice is too croaky to make phone calls.

I can't really say thanks as it seems odd.

I lost track of this thread because as I was venting and feeling ragey, I got a call that mum wasn't well.

by the time I got there, she was fine. It's not linked to taking silly risks, not her fault at all. But some of the comments on this thread clearly don't factor in that the "independence" is often completely fake.

I had to spend the night there, so was stuck there till xmas. My mum didn't understand that either, that I was so upset and annoyed.

I think she gets it more now because I became absolutely hysterical, I was so upset. She's now got some leaflets and today said to me that she is willing to have a paid carer to take her to the shops and stuff.

I think when I take her, or my sister, she can just pretend she's out with her daughter.

My sister is very much at the stage of wanting to wash her hands of it all.

I realise that lovely Mere didn't intend to start an upsetting conversation, but I hope it has been helpful for others. We don't have to be victims of other people's delusions.

Bang on.

Anyone who has had to care for now increasingly frail elderly relative can completely understand how hard it is for them to give up their independence, to have to leave their home and rely on others.

However, hardly any of them ever had to deal with elderly parents themselves and they have no concept what it's like for family who are having to pick up the pieces. I'm in my 60s and most of my contemporaries are being run completely ragged with one or more old who refuse to co operate with care plans.

@EmmaAgain22

the constant refrain of "I will manage" really means "I will cock it up and then ask you to fix it at short notice".

This is one of the best and most concise description of old wrangling I have ever read.

funnelfan and SierraSapphire - absolutely, many thanks!

I wonder where the people are getting mixed up between quantitive research in which statistical robustness is important, and qualitative research, which seeks rigour in different ways and sets out to understand why something happens, rather than making numerical claims about how much it happens. So it may be important to make sure that you interview a cross-section of people, and you can interview until you get theoretical saturation when you're not hearing any new points for example. Or you may do a first set of interviews and analyse them, and then seek to do further interviews based on what you found, any gaps and further questions. It's a completely different methodology.

23 participants in a qualitative interview study that is itself a follow on from a larger observational study is pretty good. I had five interviewees for the qualitative interview part of my Dissertation research (following on from a quantitative survey) for my MSc, and that was accepted. I still had tons of data left over from five, I can’t imagine having to sift through 23!

Read this and forwarded it straight to my mate because it reminded me do much if her mom and dad

Sure - interviews with 23 individuals was, we found, more than enough to achieve data and meaning sufficiency (older terminology for this is data saturation) for the research question and analysis method, especially when taking into account the very small size of this group more generally. There's a section on the strengths and limitations of the study in the paper which is hopefully helpful to contextualise our findings.

Thanks, appreciate the reply. No single key to unlock the stubbornness then, just taking comfort where we can in knowing we’re not alone in this situation! We’re trying the appealing to independent authorities route with very limited results. She has capacity, but is at least more cooperative than your relative.

the more research the better in this area, so thanks.

You're spot on re the message of the paper. And also about the sheer volume of data!

From memory, there were a handful of participants who acknowledged that they needed more care, usually linked to particular precipitating events (e.g. a bad fall, hospitalisation) and their children subsequently making suggestions about changes in the house / living situation. Others didn't take on their children's suggestions but took the advice of their GP or other trusted (to them) authority. These participants spoke less about being rebellious in general and focused more on positive comparisons with others... they seemed to me to be more open to reasonable-ness.

One lady who sticks in my memory was very keen to keep her independence and refused all offers of help, until she ended up being stuck upstairs (or downstairs - I forget now) due to her mobility issues, which presented an immediate problem re access to kitchen/bathroom/etc. It was only then that she agreed to have a stairlift fitted.

I feel your pain, by the way. My relative refused all help, even when he was wheelchair bound and unable to mobilise at all (after a hip replacement, no engagement with physio and very long periods of complete inactivity), we as family were forced to beg him to take up the offer of a rehabilitation focused care home stay whilst the social services nurses stood there... he still refused, and the nurses advised us they couldn't force him as he had capacity at that time.
These experiences drive a lot of my interest in this research topic, although I was already researching it (along with others) before my relative became unwell.

@niknakniknak thanks for the link to the paper. I’m not at all familiar with Positioning Theory, but the overall message I get is that the study participants had constructed a world for themselves in which they consider themselves fortunate compared to their peers, and in some instances downplayed their illnesses and conditions. And in constructing this world, this helped them feel content with their lives, whatever their constraints.

Some of the quotes from the study participants underline exactly what the carers in this thread are saying about safety vs risk. Eg “Penny” leaving her door open all night for the carers (we had that, we installed a key safe).

I know when you do qualitative interviews you often get far more material that you can use in the publication, so in that context I’d like to ask if the interviewees said any more about the familial roles that didn’t make the cut. It was fascinating to see that the participants seemed to think they were indulging their overly fussy children rather than acknowledging that they had a point and were right to be worried about their parents. I have a vested interest to ask this as my mum needs more care and is being stubbornly resistant and insisting she can manage. I’m hoping for further insights into her possible frame of mind that could help us both find the right way forward.

It's not just me then! Mine are driving me mad. Both are suffering from cognitive decline but my main issue with that is that neither will accept it. They each moan about the other starting to 'lose it' but neither will admit it to themselves, which makes life very difficult. They refuse to accept that we've had certain conversations and made specific agreements about five times already and I'm fed up with constantly repeating myself. If they would just accept it when I explain they've forgotten something or that they're confused somehow but oh no, they can never be wrong! Not possible that at nearly 80 they may have forgotten the odd detail 🙄. They accuse me of gaslighting them about it but I can't even think of any good reason to do that! How can I get them to understand what's happening?

Solidarity to all of us dealing with ageing parents! My surviving one is up to no good on a fairly regular basis too.
I'm in no doubt that she's feeling rebellious, and i applaud that to an extent, but it is frustrating when we are expected to pick up the pieces when the decisions made are not sensible.
I have made an active decision to not worry about her. She's actively chosen to stay in her less than suitable home. She's finally accept a lifeline, thankfully.
My siblings frequently tell me how worried they are - but do very little for her. It gets landed on me more often than not when there is an emergency.
I love her to bits but she can be infuriating!