MIL constantly falling - we are at our wits end

Thanks for the update. I see MIL is resistant (and I'm sorry about that) but she's safe and well. What a relief. I hope you manage to relax as much as possible in the run up to Christmas holidays and that you find a good permanent placement that suits your MIL and you and DH in the New Year. Good luck

Thank you @FeralNun .
I hope she settles and you find a lovely place for her.

Thanks for updating. This reminds me of some aspects of my dad's life in his care home. He was well cared for but he was also restless and unsettled - over time I came to feel that this was inevitable. It's what dementia does to a person: you're dimly aware, I would guess, that things aren't 'right' but not exactly how or why, so you suggest what makes sense to you as a fix, eg to 'go home' even if you're not sure yourself where home is anymore. My job was to accept that I couldn't change that, but I could make sure he was in a place where he was safe, clean, looked after and cared for, and where he got as many moments of satisfaction - whether from seeing me, a piece of cake, whatever it was - as were now available for him. He wasn't able to make that decision for himself, so I had to step up and do it. I hope it gives you some comfort that even if you can't make everything better for your MIL, you're doing the best you can for her.

My mother had a spell of frequent falls. She was referred to the “falls clinic”. Her medications were changed.
She was no longer a diabetic, she was off blood pressure meds. They tried taking her off others.
Eventually, after a year they subsided.

She was improving so much. She said she was feeling great. However she had a trip a few weeks ago. She felt it. With her previous ones she had blacked out.

Lots of people end up being on medications for years. Some can cause dizzy spells.

Respectfully, any one poster can decide to continue or stop contributing to the thread (within talk guidelines, of course) as they see fit. No one poster gets to say 'subject closed' and expect it to be obeyed because they have decided it. I'll continue to comment and contribute as I see fit. Wishing everyone a good week with the ongoing elderly parent challenges.

But they will remember this 'respectful intervention' that you've talked about family members making? Jolly good. That's convenient.

?That’s not a one off, it’s ongoing, the family may decide to engage more care, move the person into an home etc.

I can’t keep up with this - the falling in the falling out, now someone else has hopped on. Subject is now closed.

But they will remember this 'respectful intervention' that you've talked about family members making? Jolly good. That's convenient.

I also have found these posts and the tone around people turning to 'over stretched services' not supportive. We all know services are stretched. They are, nevertheless, often the appropriate or possibly the only place to turn when family members who are expected to step in are already overloaded. I had to keep saying at key moments in my own history of this that I had a full time job, a primary school aged child and lived two hours' drive away. Many family members, certainly women, in my experience need more encouragement to seek outside help, not less.

I agree. I mentioned the Fire Assessment in an effort to be helpful initially then you have repeatedly brought it up in an unpleasant way. I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt but I am done with you now and will not be engaging with you about this again. Please do not bring up the Fire Assessment to me again. With sincere best wishes to OP and all who have issues and concerns with elderly parents, I wish you well.

I’ve never suggested it wasn’t the right course of action for your father. It would be good to move on from this preoccupation with the fire brigade as it’s probably not helping OP.

In my father's situation, it didn't matter if he remembered the visit. He was adjudged to be a danger to himself and others and removed to a Care Home. I don't know where you are based but, in Scotland, fire safety visits are an integral part of the fire brigade's role. Don't let us fall out about Fire Assessments please. It helped my father. It helped his neighbours. It was suggested by Social Work. It was the right course of action. End of story

That’s assuming dementia patients understand or remember the visit. Around 10% of people over 65 have dementia so it could keep the fire brigade busy.

My experience of working with the fire brigade (in hoarding situations which are presenting a fire risk, amongst others) is that as a service and as individuals they are held in such high regard by the public that suggestions from them will often carry more weight with an individual that I could do as their usual HCP. It also puts the person on their radar. Always been a positive experience all round.

Thank you, sincerely appreciated. My very obstinate father got taken in as an emergency on Xmas Eve to Care Home because not only did he present as a danger to himself (he said he would jump out his window if there was a fire - due to the height of his flat, he would have been dead on impact), his neighbours were deemed to be at risk from him. Hence, the Fire Risk Assessment got him a placement, helped his neighbours and me because I was at wit's end trying to keep him safe and not a risk to his neighbours. I could write a book about the issues he caused but I won't. I suppose all I was trying to say was that sometimes something you don't expect to help like a Fire Risk Assessment is the very thing that does help. I ended up very ill on the back of my father's dementia and actually have never properly recovered. I do not dismiss your own experience in any way. It was my father's Social Worker that suggested a Fire Risk Assessment. I agreed and she was right to do so because my dad got an emergency placement, the neighbours were safe and I got a sleep for the first time in months knowing he was safe. Best regards

@Mirabai everyone is fraught. 🥰

I was in no way shape or form intending to be snarky, if I was too blunt I apologise. I am a middle-aged person with ill health and obstinate elderly parents as it happens.. and elderly patients too. (Not a doctor though).

I’m glad it worked out for your dad, my point was simply that it not really practical to manage all elderly people’s fire risk using the fire brigade, and anyway some won’t listen to fireman either or forget they’ve even been.

I didn't find the posts offensive, to be clear. I thought they were unnecessarily snarky. For the first couple of posts, I gave the benefit of the doubt to the poster hoping they were trying to be helpful. But. When you have said you managed to get your father moved to a safe place (Care Home) as a result of a Fire Risk Assessment (meaning to be helpful to others in case that would help them as it helped my father and was suggested by Social Work) and someone sees fit to be judgy about it by mentioning it three different posts in quite a non supportive way (such as calling people out for "expecting Social Work, GP's, Fire services instead of themselves to step up for parents ") this undermines middle aged people juggling a job, grandchildren, personal ill health, an obstinate elderly parent. In my mind, it doesn't matter how you get help for your obstinate parent to keep them safe even if it is a Fire Risk Assessment. Btw, I've had family issues I've had to sort since early childhood and I have managed. I just don't appreciate snarkiness

I'd like to think so.

But my DF said the same after dealing with his own elderly, somewhat challenging and spirited, relatives. And he insisted on setting up POA, inheritance tax mitigations etc very early. Then he developed dementia, tried his best, and succeeded in some cases, to undo all his planning, convinced himself I was stealing and plotting against him, and steadfastly refused to accept he needed any help.

I hope I manage to remember to clear the house - started but hampered by DF's unsorted things still- , downsize, accept help, submit to care etc. but judging from our long family history of being stubborn independent old people, I think I'm doomed

The one positive thing to come out of all of us trying to do our best for feisty relatives, is that we will not allow ourselves to burden our own relations when we get older & can’t cope. I will try my upmost to not be stubborn or make life more awkward for those who love me & are trying to help.

Thank you @BlueLegume for that link. I've been given one already by the nursing home, and had made a start on one of our own, but I appreciate you taking the time :)

@Mirabai I appreciate your input, and as you say you are dealing with elderly people on a daily basis, I'll take a guess that you work in elder care in some form, or in a doctor's surgery. What I have found is that in our particular surgery it was extremely difficult to get anybody to hear what I had to say, and there is no way I would have been able to get my mother along for any kind of assessment. She shows signs of vascular dementia, although was coping ok and until her stroke, her cognitive issues weren't too much of a problem. So it wasn't that important. Had she been leaving the gas on, i would have forced the issue.
When I worked in care, it was very apparent that the care manager had a lot more clout than family members. Also that all GP surgeries behaved differently.
The points you make are logical and could certainly be useful to someone, but having been through all this, it's hard hearing that it's easy to get an assessment. It's really not.

I had to go back and reread, but didn't find any offensive....but useful points.
It's very difficult in all situations.

We had my MIL living 5 minutes walk away from us for 4 years - moved her to a flat in our village where she could rollator to everything. She walked up to ours every evening for supper which was nice for us all sociably and meant we could keep an eye on her - or so we thought! First 2 years were fine - then things began to go downhill - slowly at first so we didn't intially notice.

She went from walking (slowly with a rollator) about 3/4 mile p/day to developing cellulitis in her leg to the point it was red raw without mentioning it. This refused to heal - because it transpired she wasn't remembering to drink enough during the day & not putting her feet up as requested - not in the riser chair we got her (turns out she couldn't master the controls) or in bed (turns out she's been sleeping with her feet on the floor because she couldnt lift them up into the bed without help but don't want to be a problem). She didn't mention any of it because a) she doesn't like being a bother & b) it turns out she was experiencing cognitive decline but so slowly none of us had noticed, despite seeing her every night for a few hours.

In the end, we had a week of lots of things going wrong - getting lost in the walk to our house for supper, mounting confusion, sitting on the loo for about 8 hours (whilst either believing she hadn't been, didn't notice or was too embarrassed to tell us she was stuck), forgetting to take her meds. She was seen by the ambulance after a fall but managed to convince them she was fine - that was so much effort she fell asleep as soon as they left.

It ended with a 'long lie' when she fell over partially clothed in the middle of the night and forget to press the 'get help' button on her wrist. She was covered in poop & developed a bed sore but even then the paramedics assessed her as just needing a visit from the Frailty Team! It was they who decided she needed to admitted & gave DH a letter to help speed up admission - he was still at the hospital hour 13 hours before they admitted her. She turned out to be severely dehydrated & have mid pneumonia!

She was in hospital for week (being moved around different wards almost daily) By then we & she were exhausted and so we spent her time in the hospital looking for respite care. She was happy to be anywhere out of hospital & was content to go to the home for respite.

We investigated home carers & requested a dementia assessment, which took 4 months. During that time she had a number of other falls - the relief on being called a sensible time to be told it had all been dealt with was immense. The diagnosis came back that she has normal pressure hydrocephalus - so her cognitive skills, short term memory & balance are never going to improve.

The diagnosis helped us convince MIL she could not return to her own flat without a full-time carer and that staying in the care home that she had been for the last 5 months was the best place for.

She has been there just over a year now & settled in after about 4 months of occasionally asking to go back to the flat. She still forgets occasionally that we have now rented out to help pay for her care but it's fine when we explain it again. We also have friends who visit the home in a professional capacity & they tell us she's happy there too / it's not an act for when we visit. She is healthier than when she was living down the road from us at she is made to take her meds on time and drink enough fluids.

I'm writing all this to say that my DH wrestled with his consciousness about putting his mother into the home & then her staying there but a year on it was the best decision for all of us. The burden was huge (& she was only 5 mins walk away, not a long drive) and we'd sort of got used to it but now it's no longer there, all of us (including MIL) are so much happier.

Start investigating care homes near her (or you) and next time she has a bad fall insist she goes to one for respite. If she refuses then you need to step back and involve social services.