Cockroach cafe - Spring to Summer 2026

I am being driven back. Luckily we have a pile of leftovers which can just be microwaved when we get home (at half past nine).

I made her a meal and said, look, I get the leg ulcers are absolutely wretched, but it makes no sense for me (who lives well over an hour's drive away) to play Chinese Whispers with you and the GP or the care company or whoever - the best thing is for you to TALK TO THEM and if you are unsatisfied, TALK TO THEM AGAIN.

Also, do some actual walking. As apparently it is supposed to help with leg ulcers.

She was muttering about getting a live in carer. I did say it might be easier to find someone just as an all-day carer. She gets on better with the older, local, carers and they all have lives; they're not going to want to live in her spare room (pleasant and ensuite as it is). Whereas doing a single all-day visit, so not fighting the horrific local traffic throughout the day, might be quite attractive!
It might cheer her up so I am all for it.

I may have done all this with an obvious air of exasperation on top of the sympathy, but hey, I also cleaned up the large hairball the cat had deposited on the carpet. So.

Bad daughters bench? I'm not even a bloody daughter!

Have been reading this thread for a while and have got some good tips and advice for dealing with my situation. Mum diagnosed 6 years ago with mixed dementia and being cared for at home by Dad with one care visit in the morning. The dementia has progressed to a stage that my Dad is lurching from one crisis to the next. In the last week Mum has had a fall and not been able to get up and had to wait 4 hours for an ambulance, messed and smeared all over the house twice and had 2 horrendous nose bleed episodes one of which led to a 6 hour wait in A&E. My Dad is a broken man, but will not consider increasing care or a home. I try to help where I can and say the right things, but I cannot do the one thing I think he wants me to do and that is sweep in and look after her. I don't live close enough to help more than once a week and have other caring responsibilities. I just needed to vent and get this out. Waiting for the next thing to kick off.

Thank you and thanks @Awfuldaughter (great name, its what my S-father thinks of me too). So today my mum can over and used my land line to call the Dementia support line (think it was the Alzheimer's society). The lady on the phone took it really seriously and then raised a safeguarding request about Mum and her being emotionally/psychologically abused. She gave us a lot of good advice. Mum still v wobbly but I think it was really validating for her to hear that his behaviour is abuse and not acceptable.

I'm taking the day off work on Monday and will be there with my Mum. To answer any questions, Mum is much younger than him and is physically disabled but not hugely limited and very capable.

I think both teen laziness and oldie haplessness both have a neurological component to them, but there's also an social/environmental component, which is why we humans do nag and shout at people - to some degree it does work sometimes! Only a bit though! and best utilized minimally, I suspect.

Welp, I thought things were going too well. Perfectly ok visit yesterday, kept the plates spinning, bought her a cookie, had a chat.

Today however - phone call from the carers. Upset, not eating, not taking meds, not answering phone(s).

They've called 111 but not sure that's going to help unless they can get a GP out to actually SEE her.

Looks like I'll be Groundhog Day-ing yesterday's drive. Right! (Calls again - and she's still not answering either phone). Time to turf my long-suffering DH out of his bath and head down I guess. I am VERY grateful for his moral and practical support.

@GnomeDePlume hope you manage your holiday OK.

Oh god this sounds so familiar, especially the last minute discovery of imminent plans, hazy details and grumpiness.

My mum doesn’t do much planned social stuff anymore, for us it’s doctors’ appointments, so all day on the phone to find out when and where the appointment is and often in between my visits she will just cancel or reschedule rather than figure it out.

It was the main driver behind sharing a family calendar app.

Of course she only uses the app sometimes and then struggles to use it (because she doesn’t use it enough to get used to it and remember the steps) but we haven’t found a better solution. In my defense my mother has five pages of games apps on her phone that she spends hours learning and playing, she’s comfortable with this level of tech.

I asked multiple times yesterday if she wanted to add anything to the shopping list before I went to the supermarket (at the end of a very long and tiring day) and today discovered that she’s been out of loo roll and using boxes of tissues instead. Yay, going to the shops for a second time in 24hrs on a Saturday afternoon to get one item.

I don’t think I would mind if she said Oops, forgot to add toilet roll to the list but she gets so grumpy and it seems so much like teenage laziness to me, down to the hours spent staring at her phone and getting cross about being asked to do anything else. I know logically that her planning skills are deteriorating, I wish I could get ahead of feeling so annoyed at her attitude.

Do NOT feel guilty about the care home option.
It's the best thing once care at home becomes impossible.
Care homes and nursing homes are the best places for patients with worsening dementia.

Aaaaagh. Mum phoned me yesterday to tell me that she has a garden trip and she needed to be dropped off at the coach at location A at 8am today. Then later yesterday she phoned to say that she needed to be dropped off at location B for a different garden trip with a different garden club, also at 8am. When questioned, she decided that it was in fact location A. Anyway I got up early this morning and went to collect her and she was still in bed and she got annoyed with me because the trip is NEXT week and that's definitely what she told me.

Fortunately she had written it up on her calendar, it is today and it's location B. She dressed quickly and I dropped her off but she hasn't had breakfast or even a cup of tea and she is in a shockingly grumpy mood, so I hope the day goes ok. She finds day trips quite tiring these days, especially getting on and off the coach. The location A trip was on her calendar for the 27th, when I will be away so I will have to ask DH if he can do it and he is always running late which will stress her out. DB would normally take his turn for this sort of thing but he has a detached retina so won't be driving anywhere for a few months.

She said several times in the car that she won't sign up for anymore trips because it's all too confusing, so hopefully this will be the last of it.

@LynnThese4reSEXPEOPLE sometimes it's easier to put this stuff in an email. Takes away the fear of a dramatic reaction from a parent and you can take time to write down examples in a controlled manner.we had to do this when mum,who had Alzheimer's, was insisting she could look after very frail dad but was not recognising his needs. He was backing her up in front of anyone who wasn't family but complaining to.us.

Hi there, just wanted to reply and tell you to hang on in there. I usually just lurk here, but checked in after a very late night at work and had to read a few pages back to get a rough idea of your situation. Sounds really stressful having your mum and stepdad living with you. Given his recent significant decline in mental health, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to tell adult social care the truth. Does your mum have capacity? Sorry, there are gaps in my understanding about your situation. It’s sounds like both you and your mother would be better off if her husband were in residential care. Please try to let go of any guilt on your part (I know, easier said than done). Being ND myself, I totally understand the need for a quiet and safe home in which to decompress. There’s zero chance of you being there for either your mum or stepdad without that haven. Be honest and tell them you can’t cope. Find out what the options are and let us know how you get on

@Fififerry1
We tried the 'halfway option' when my mum moved into Assisted Living whilst at about Stage 4 dementia and it wasn't very successful. She was very disorientated and clearly not happy although it was a great place, lots of activities and support. It increased her sundowning tendency, she was up at night a lot and almost inevitably took a bad fall and had to be discharged from hospital straight into a care home. There comes a point when it's not about where the person wants to be, but where they will be safest. You could try it I suppose, ask her what she thinks. The irony in our case was that AL was meant to be safer!
(Edited to say that some AL placements will provide extra care (continence care etc) as the service user's condition worsens, so another move isn't inevitable in the short term. Of course, we chose the wrong one.😒)

Burst into tears at work today as everything just became too much.

Adult Social Care coming on Monday. Please tell me how to tell them he has emotionally abused my Mum for years and she can't deal with him any more.

I am scared.

DM was on Rivastigmine patches but was allergic to them. Donezapil tablets made her sick so she is on Memantine. I can’t say one way or the other whether it has made a difference. Her short term memory is non existent but her long term memory isn’t too bad. She has Alzheimer’s diagnosed 5 years ago but also has normal pressure hydrocephalus which impacts short term memory so it’s hard to say.

@Fififerry1 my DM is in a carehome. It has been a godsend as DM has declined. Each stage has required more/different equipment and it has been provided instantly.

If you do decide to go down the carehome route then I recommend looking for somewhere with different levels of care. My DM started in residential care and is now in nursing care. These are just different floors in the same building. DM wasnt aware of the change.

It is difficult and also frightening to think this may be one's own fate.

Oh and yes my mum tried rivastigamine, but she didn’t do well on it so I took her off. She has vascular dementia rather than Alzheimer’s though so not sure her experience would be applicable to your situation.

Please try and reframe your thinking around “putting her in” a care home. When/if the time comes, she will receive much better care from trained staff than she possibly could from you struggling to do everything on your own, especially when also working in a demanding job.

Many of us have experienced the relief of being able to go back to having a parent-child relationship again, rather than carer/fixer/PA. As a pp said, you can then concentrate on having quality time with your mum. My mums care home does trips out with the more mobile residents and relatives are welcome to join, especially if it’s to the pub or coffee shop where you can meet them there. I would honestly skip the idea of her living independently and start researching care homes. Good ones often have waiting lists at this time of year especially. (There can be higher turnover in winter.)

if you strongly feel that you do want to try her living independently, then I agree with pp that it will be far better to rent than buy somewhere. Do have a look at what the “extra care” housing options are in your area.

@Fififerry1 I feel for you and can understand your emotions with your Mum being only 18 years older.

I have very similar thoughts watching what my Mum has and is going through.

If your Mum is fortunate to have the funds the right care home allows you to let others do the day to day caring and you get to spend quality time with your Mum.

@Fififerry1 if you need to move her but can't stomach a care home at least rent not but and look at extra care flats. At least you don't saddle yourself with having a second sale to handle. Honestly you run the risk of having consecutive sales with no break or even worse overlapping sales while you are settling your mum into a care home and paying extra mortgage on your own property pending sales. Is that a stress you want to risk? Given the speed of your mum's progression it's a very real risk.
Appreciate renting may be financially dependent on selling her house so you may be stuck between a rock and a hard place. A position a lot of us will be familiar with.

Sorry. And thanks @Seeingadistance

Thank you @GnomeDePlume @Kirschcherries and @EmeraldRoulette
I think you are saying what I know and can’t accept. I love my DM but she is only 18 years older than me (79) and could live a very long time. By which time I may have Alzheimer’s myself. I can’t look after her at her home it’s too far away - she needs to move but the last few months where she has lived with me have been awful. I still work full-time in a very difficult job and it is completely draining. I can’t think how much worse it will become when she needs practical care as well.
I just can’t imagine putting her into a care home and hoped there might be a halfway option.
You are all such strong and brave women on this thread and your experience is invaluable. My DS lives abroad and whilst my DB lives nearby, he is very much head in the sand, wants to help but fairly useless.
Does anyone have experience of Rivastigmine?

@Fififerry1 i'm sorry I can't see that buying another proper is a good idea in this situation

And it's such an incredibly stressful thing to do for everybody

I'm sorry things are so difficult 💐

Update for me, my mum is actually upset by what I said yesterday

I feel as if I've said worse but it usually goes straight over her head

However, I did once explain what I said to someone I know and she said "that is the most ridiculously polite way of saying you're not coping". I did think yesterday was going to be the same.

Anyway, I have held my ground and said that I'm sorry if I've upset her, but I was very angry with some of the things she was saying, and I feel she has been very inconsiderate of my needs. Again. I have reminded her that I had a nervous breakdown three years ago.

I'm not inclined to do much more about it to be honest. I think we need to keep out of each other's way. As she keeps being ridiculously healthy, one of my concerns is that she's going to dismiss the care agency and that we will have to start all over again when she's ill again - but I probably have to let go of that worry.

You just cannot predict anything about this. It's a terrible mess.

@Fififerry1 I am sorry your DM is going through the dementia process and has declined rapidly.

At this stage buying another property is unlikely to be a sensible move. As pp point out a move may lead t9 s further decline and within a short period of time may need a care home.

My advice is to use the time to find a care home near to you which caters for her needs now but is future proofed by also offering end of life and advanced dementia care.

@Fififerry1 unfortunately with dementia the decline doesnt 'bottom out', it continues. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Each move your DM makes is likely to trigger another decline. As you are now seeing, that decline can be very fast. As an example, my DM has gone from independent living to bedbound, being spoon fed pureed food in 18 months.

I am not a financial or legal adviser but in your shoes I would be looking to get your DM's assets available to pay for care.

In terms of the property and financial issues - you should really seek advice from a solicitor and probably also a financial planner.

Unfortunately, moving house will more than likely cause a sharp decline in your mum's health and accelerate her confusion. Have you thought about looking into residential care for her, or do you think she's still not at that stage yet?

I’ve just discovered this thread in the last few months as my lovely mum has been going through the dementia diagnosis process. She has declined mentally very quickly with confusion/delusions. I just wondered if anyone has advice as to how best to deal with our situation.
My lives over an hour away and it’s not been manageable so we have moved her in with us. Need to put her house on the market but may take a while to sell. We have found a lovely flat very near to us which I am going to remortgage our house to buy. The aim being that the mortgage will be paid off with the proceeds of my mums house. Has anyone done this and know of the best way to do it? Should I buy it in my name or my mum‘s or joint names? And how will the money she pays me back be regarded. I’m not interested in preserving inheritance or avoiding paying care home fees if the time comes but don’t want to be out of pocket.

@FiniteSagacity thank you

I've got better in the sense of being better at walking away from it and forgetting about it but the resentment just eats you up

@GnomeDePlume I hope you get to go on holiday

@rookiemere I'm sure the care home is helpful, but I can totally see you'd still have a stone in your shoe.

Hugs all round if wanted.