DM wants a riser-chair costing £4.5k! Advice v welcome

The carer seems to have become very invested in your Mum and what she needs and wants and its certainly not for her to tell you to 'deilver the bad news'! If I am honest I would ask for a new carer - my spidery vibes are saying that there is something going on.

I do think she'll live a long time as she is has no other ailments. As with PP, I don't think 15 years is improbable. And nope, the money won't last that long to keep her at home as we'll need to sell it to pay for care.

@Valleyofthedollymix I think you have to accept she may live for much less than 15 years.

Dementia attacks the brain and all its functions, not just reasoning skills.

My late Dad died from dementia at 93. He was diagnosed 3 years prior to that.

You've already mentioned her mobility issues.

There is a type of dementia- Lewi Body Dementia- which affects mobility.
I am sure my Dad had this although his care was very poor (after he was diagnosed by one brain scan it was never followed up.)

With hindsight (and a lot of medical research from me) I think he has LBD.
It can start with Parkinson's type symptoms (especially shuffling or tremors) along with hallucinations. My Dad shuffled for several years prior to his diagnosis.

It's evidently very hard to diagnose LBD and needs a specialist neurologist looking into what an 'ordinary' neuro has diagnosed as dementia. (Dad's was vascular dementia but as I say I think he was misdiagnosed and he also had some comorbidities - kidneys.)

Just because your Mum has no other physical ailments yet, sadly it doesn' t means she won't. The brain literally dies off with dementia and she may develop other things.

I hope you find a way forward.

If it's not been asked already do you have Power of Attorney? (Finance and Health?)
You need to be in a position to stop her wild spending (clearly a sign of her illness) if it's going to affect her standard of living.

Just to add that a temp carer recommended that we get secondhand, but DH said that he wanted me to have something new in the house, and we got one that fitted the decor. (Most of our furniture is/was secondhand, apart from our bedroom furniture.)

Also...when DH was close to 80, his best friend told him to start treating himself to the things he wanted. He'd always wanted a gold watch, so I got him one for a birthday...that kind of thing.

I have no regrets. We weren't well off and I'm not well off now, but I have enough. (Mortgage is paid off and my pension is enough to live on.)

Agreed. Hugely expensive, takes ages, and OP can manage the money herself.

You need to tell the carer that you have a legal duty to act in your mum's best interests and that does not necessarily mean spending all her money buying things she doesn't need and potentially running out of money that could and should have been used on her care.

The carer also needs reminding of her actual role here and the importance of professionalism.

OP updated somewhere upthread that the agency is not the carers’ employer - OP is. So in letting the carer go, she has to be careful to follow the law otherwise she’s open to legal action.

We got one for my late husband. Brand new. (Not bespoke.) Cost around 1k. It was bought at the end of 2020. 4k seems excessive, but maybe that's because it's bespoke?

Even then, most firms let you choose the fabric and don't charge that much.

The carer being rude sounds like she's on the defensive. I suspect if you scratch beneath the surface you'll find your mum will have given her some of the stuff she's bought. In fact I wonder if she's connected to the person she brought in to sell the chair. Any decent care professional would listen to and understand your concerns...actually any decent care professional wouldn't have let this situation arise in the first place. Sounds like she's got her feet right under the table.

Re: chairs - I started looking into them for my dad as he couldn't get off the sofa without a lot of difficulty. He was resistant to any attempts to change things because 'he could manage'. I ordered a couple of brochures online - cue deluge of phone calls, I'm so glad my dad didn't get them. You couldn't just order, you had to have a salesman round to make sure you got the right one for you - it really reminded me of the stories you used to hear about double glazing salesmen not leaving until you had signed up. In my dad's case, he did an about turn and decided he was going to move into a care home so we didn't go any further. But there is definitely a lot of hard-sell, and obviously the salesman's commission comes from somewhere. My dad is OK cognitively, my mum on the other hand has Alzheimer's and the personality changes you are seeing sound familiar too.

This was my point too. The OP has updated and advised that the agency are not the carers’ direct employer - OP is. And as such she has to follow employment law, and to sack someone for misconduct of any kind without evidence, is folly.

I knew a carer who was bought a car to run her charge around. She got to keep the car.

She won't want to change carers. That's not her decision to make, longer term she can't afford it.

It may be better that you look at residential care anyway now ready for a time when she needs moving.

If the current carer is via an agency then are you ending the contract with the agency rather than the employment bid the carer?

I think you can’t do right for doing wrong by your mother. So the only way through is to make the best decisions and detach from her a little. I think the carer is colluding with her and you’re being painted to the carer as unreasonable. Having one carer must be claustrophobic for them both. I suspect a care home is the best solution but she’ll be resistant…

Hello op. This all sounds really tough. The change in your mother re money and food etc may well be the dementia. Also even her reaction to your father's illness and death may have been heavily affected by the dementia. It does kill people. My father was fit as a flea but it still killed him. Took about 6 years from diagnosis to death and it was heart wrenching. In the early stages his reactions to a couple of bereavements were odd. I have also known people with dementia to get very angry with family and accuse them of stealing money. It is such a difficult thing to figure what is the disease and also accept the disappearance of the person you know. My father was in a nursing home for the last three years of his life as his needs were too great. Good luck with all of this. The riser recliner will further reduce your Mum's mobility by the way. It should only be used if it is really needed and she can cope.

For the last five years I’ve been caring for my mum who is 93 and has advanced vascular dementia, with private personal care bought in. So your assessment of my understanding is a little off. I wasn’t commenting as to the fitness or otherwise of the carer, I was simply pointing out that you can’t terminate on the grounds of financial abuse - or any other misconduct for that matter - without evidence. Of course the OP can sack the carer on other grounds, but it still has to be done according to the law and according to the terms and conditions of the agency, depending on whether they or the OP are her direct employer. And if you bothered to read the rest of my post, I did point out that a budget and a limit on spending need to be in place because as her DM’s LPA, it’s the OP who is ultimately responsible for DM’s money, not the carer.

I don't know but don't you have poa ? My mum is in the same situation and I have control over finances because she is the same with money now .

We have spent £100k on care already !!

Anyways she has a credit card with a max limit of £500 for her safety which I pay off so no chance of her buying random shit she doesn't need ..

Watch those carers , we had one who loved shopping and mum was buying her all sorts !

OP she won't want to change carers and so I think you will need to brace yourself for a difficult conversation here.
She will be angry of course and the chair will be an example of how you are being unfair etc
My recommendation is that you go in with a clear plan. This is not a conversation about wants but a conversation about needs. What she needs in terms of support and how this will be delivered. She will be angry and upset and it will be for you to weather the storm until it dies down. And it will.

As a PP said if this were a child you wouldn't hesitate to do the right thing against the wishes of the child. Keep this in the back of your mind and good luck

The carer was rude to you? Ah. That's a carer who has lost sight of what they are there for. Creating difficulties in the relationship between your mum and you is very definitely not their job.

OP, is your Mum getting Attendance Allowance? It isn't means tested and can help considerably with care costs.

@Mirabai you can get rid of an agency. If you are employing a carer directly you have to follow employment law.
The chances are the carer is simply not that experienced about what is okay for her to do and what is not. It is hard to recruit carers at the moment, especially for people with dementia.

Yes, I think sometimes it’s a best guess based on experience, the age of the patient and at what stage the condition is diagnosed.

My mum is nearly 93 and has vascular dementia. She was 89 at diagnosis and the consultant advised that given her age and the advanced nature of the dementia at the time of diagnosis, plus the fact that she has other vascular issues, a staged deterioration was likely - marked changes followed by plateauing out for a while until the next event.

He estimated that without any other events related to other conditions, within four to five years she would be nearing end stage with a significantly increased risk of heart attack/stroke. Unfortunately his predictions were fairly accurate as nearly five years later mum’s in very poor health and I’ve watched the essence of who she is disappear in front of me until she’s almost unrecognisable.

Thankfully she’s still manageable at home with a little personal care bought in privately. She lives with us but it’s anyone’s guess as to whether this will still be possible if she has a major event. We have a do not resuscitate order in place because the consultant advised that in the event she survived a major stroke or heart attack there would be little to no quality of life. I really feel for anyone caring for a loved one with any form of dementia. It’s a horrible, cruel disease.

She invited a bespoke recliner company to do a presentation to DM! So OP is here asking if the price is extortionate which it is.

You obviously don’t understand the world of carers and vulnerable people if you think any of this is acceptable behaviour.

You can sack a carer and an agency for whatever reason you like.

wrt agencies: we used Christies and it wasn't anything like that per week!

On the other hand they were clueless about cashmere jumpers and ruined all Mum's in the washing machine.

A riser recliner was great for my Mum when her knees went, but once dementia reached a certain level she couldn't manage the controls, which is an issue. Also a reason why stairlifts don't work for many people with dementia without close supervision.