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

And yes, all mobility and strength should be encouraged.

Signed up just to reply to this.

Riser recliner chairs can vary in cost. You could be looking anywhere between £400 and £10k.
The one that your mother has chosen is bespoke and made for her size and comfort. This is not an unusual price for what she's purchasing.
Provided she has the ability to use the controls, this could massively improve her comfort and quality of life.

Respectfully, this is your mother's money. If she wishes to spend it, you can't stop her.
The care assistant won't benefit from your mother having an expensive chair. Shes not forcing her to make this purchase. A need has been identified and a solution found.

• I used to sell these chairs for a living.

The carer should be working with your mother AND her support network, particularly where her condition will lead to inevitably falling under consideration of the mental capacity act.

Yes, chairs are beneficial. Out of control spending is not. Second hand chairs are out there and measurements on the leg length hip height will be needed, but of course whilst they are made for individuals there is only so much variation in the population!

Really sorry, being incredibly lazy and haven’t rtft, but if she is able to stand up from a chair, then she should avoid a rise and recline as long as possible, as it really is a case of use it or lose it. She will get increasingly weak muscles if she stops using them, and won’t be able to hoick herself off the bed/toilet in the future. She would be better paying for a few physio sessions to give her exercises to keep her muscles in good working order for as long as possible.

My Nan had one of these at this cost. It was fab but she used it for 6 months (with a protective cover) and then went into hospital never to come out. The chair was sold on to a mobility centre. Worth looking at the second hand options.

Err, your carer is most definitely dodgy!!
Carers are not in charge of ordering new TVs, cashmere jumpers and smoked salmon. She’s taking the piss big time.

1. Speak to her. Give her a budget for food for the two of them or better still order an online shop yourself on repeat.
2. Speak to the agency. This is unacceptable.

Dont know anything about chairs but I would ask for an OT assessment via your GP or SS. They were very quick visiting an elderly friend of mine and had all sorts of things installed within a fortnight.

At that price, it will be customised to her size, etc.

If your DM can afford it, OP, why not let her spend her money on something that will be comfortable, will enable her to change her position throughout the day and will help her to more easily/safely get in and out of it than might be the case with a conventional armchair.

DM has one. Bought after she'd been extremely poorly nearly a decade ago. Expensive outlay but on a cost-per-use basis, it's probably worked out at under £1 per day. Enormously helpful to her.

I'm really shocked your Mum is paying over 100k a year for a carer. She could live in a very posh residential home with hairdressers and nail tech and social activities every day for less than that.

Oh and the chair we got my Dad was about £500 from Argos. I bet the chair is way less than £4.5k and the carer is pocketing the difference. I'd look into care homes if I was you. This whole set up is crazy and you don't seem to have a handle on it.

Haven't had the chance to read all posts, as I'm short on time, but wanted to hop on, to say that we got our Dad a riser recliner, when his legs were weak after a stint in hospital. He had some rehab at that time, and we were repeatedly told by many different professionals that they are the worst thing ever. Because the person no longer uses muscles to get themselves in and out of the chair, they rapidly decline. I even had one professional say to me "her heart sank when we said he had a riser recliner".

My Dad is now bed bound and can't walk at all, and this was a contributing factor apparently.

Why are you being so wet with the hired help. Tell her she is not to arrange ANYTHING without going through you and take that card off her. Can't believe you've given her this much power - what were you thinking??

She's now so reliant and deskilled that she feels that one (carer) is not enough (she needs one for her nails!)

Round here a chiropodist will come to the house to cut nails for about £40, which would be a LOT cheaper

As for the chair, is it really made to measure, or is this one of those things where they push what seems the best one for her and chuck the word "bespoke" round a lot?

I get what you're saying about being seen to be the bad guy here, but if you want to protect her you may need to be exactly that

I don’t think the carer should have access to your mum’s bank account via a debit card or be using any card in your mum’s name. This is a breach of the Terms&Conditions. You probably need to inform the bank that your mum no longer has capacity, get the card cancelled and a new card and pin set up that you have control of.

you can find other ways to give the carer funds to spend on your mum’s needs. Eg A prepay card which you can top up as required. You can agree a fairly generous set amount with the carer to cover regular needs but then a discussion will need to take place about anything exceptional.

My mum got a bespoke one made for her and she hates it. She went to a shop and she tried a few that she loved and then they measured her for her own one. It broke down a couple of times too which she was unhappy with. She wants to get a new chair now that isn’t “bespoke”.

Tbh there is a part of me that thinks if I had dementia I'd want to have fun spending my money before I declined. Dementia is vicious.
How about ring fencing enough for the basic care and fees?
I can't remember reading but make sure you have both POA in place - financial and health.

These….

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‘I think you need to tell the carers that her funds are running out and they need to not enable her spending frivolously.

It may or not be strictly true but it's silly buying lots of new clothes if the money is better spent elsewhere.’

Burning through £2+ a week funds will be depleting at quite a rate.
Good advice, maybe replace the unlimited card with a pre-loaded one if the spending is really wild.

In some ways a lack of interest in ‘things’ can make life easier. My Mum likes to visit poundland. Spending the odd fiver on things that are unlikely to be used vs her enjoyment is worth it. 7 rolls of clingfilm anyone?

‘My Mother with dementia never got the hang of using this type of chair. Would recline it but forget how to right it again and would - very unsafely - climb out.’

This is my Mum. She never uses the reclining functions now and rarely did when it was new a few years ago. However she does use the remote as a phone when the real phone rings.

Just a thought about care homes, whether or not this ends up being a full-time option for the future. Are there any good ones near you who run things like coffee mornings, exercise classes or other regular events that members of the public can join in with?

This sort of thing could be a regular trip out with or without you or a carer, an activity that isn't costly, a way to make new friends, a way to become familiar with a place that might one day end up becoming 'home' and might give a carer if they go along some alternative company too, as well as something new to talk about when they return home.

I know that one of the care homes near my parents would invite visitors and their carers for special occasions, another would do 'day care' once a week which cost a lot but less than the amount you are paying daily. They included a pick up and drop off service. As a PoA, it's also a way to see how these sort of set ups work and be able to watch different homes in action, especially in terms of management before any bigger commitment is made.

If you haven't already done so, it might also be worth asking the GP to see if there is a centralised point of contact for accessing services in your mum's local NHS authority. Nobody told us but we found out by accident that our NHS had a group of area-wide specialist senior community 'health visitors' who knew their way around the whole of what was available in our area for older and/or more vulnerable people. They could access medical information and liaise with the GP and district nurses and were reassuring about whether a situation looked like it needed fast-tracking or not. They could also deal with the nursing side of things if necessary, eg weighing, giving jabs or doing urine tests in an emergency but this wasn't their main job which was to facilitate access to services including equipment assessment and loan. Once my parents were on their list, it was just one point of contact for all the services we needed and made things so very much easier.

I'm an OT and riser recliner chairs are the bane of my life. So many people get them completely unnecessarily and they can quickly decondition people who become dependent on the riser mechanism. Losing the ability to engage their core muscles and making other transfers difficult.
Is she able to get up from the toilet or commode? Then she should be able to get up from her chair if it's high enough.
Your carer needs a good talking too.
Even in cases where someone needs a riser chair (some Parkinson's patients) I would never dream of recommending a particular company or (God forbid) inviting a salesperson round.

DFIL has dementia and one of these chairs but he can’t work it. The chair belonged to DDIL’s granny, originally, but she died so it was passed on to him. He’s fine sitting in it, the OT came out and said it’s a good fit but not to use the riser bit as yet because he needs to keep using his muscles but he doesn’t have the capacity to recline himself. He would have 6 months ago.

I wouldn’t be sending £4.5k on a chair in this situation, @Valleyofthedollymix . I feel for you. It sounds like you’re torn between a rock and a hard place atm.

Definitely get a private referral now.

You are not safe guarding your mother's future by letting her spend at the whim of a carer without question.
Speak to whom ever is in charge of the carer's agency about your concerns that Mother is being easily swayed.
It is very unprofessional of the carer to take advantage of her.

Think about setting a limit to the amount the carer can spend per week and month and per transaction.
Your mother's affairs should be transparent.

Splurge on her yourselves, with cheaper, lovely things like a cup cake or flowers. She obviously loves being treated as special but four cashmere cardigans in one month is excessive.
They are also easily wrecked when washed incorrectly.

An Occupational Therpist could be consulted before buying a 4000 chair. If you are spending that much it shoud be warrented, helpful and robust.

Def get an OT in. You can pay for that and get a proper report. It will cost less than the chair.
Noooo, get a referral to OT through Social Services. This is fairly easy and the process for adaptations and equipment is fairly quick once you're in the system. Speak to your local Carers group if you need to.
See what @Tumbleweed101 says above.

I agree. I’m in London and that’s a still an awful lot.

OP needs to shop around and find a better deal. And a more responsible carer.

My dad got one free through a NHS scheme when going through cancer treatment as his OT assessed him as needing one. It's worth speaking to medical professionals involved with your mum or even GP first to see if she might be eligible for one in a similar scheme.

He gave his back now as thankfully recovered enough to no longer need help with getting in and out of achair.