Cockroach cafe - Spring to Summer 2026

I assume your brother realises that as the disease progresses your mother will need someone to do personal care in changing pads , cleaning the aftermath including herself , endless clothing , bedding and surrounding area including the floor / carpet , hands if they do that to themselves etc?
Who does he think will do that ?

My neighbours dh can come across as fine , you can have a reasonable conversation with him yet he has recently forgot what toilet paper is , used his t shirt to wipe himself , also got it on his hands , wiped them on the stairway wallpaper as he's coming down the stairs and had a shitty t shirt back on himself .

His wife didn't expect him to have done anything like that early on in his diagnosis and thought she had a while before things like that manifested itself .

@Choux We were in the process of sorting LPA but brother had started questioning whether it was needed/who should be LPA. I'm hoping he will now agree that this is a necessity and I can do it quickly. Mum has a will in place and it currently basically splits everything between us. She has some savings but is currently using some each month towards bills etc (which was always her plan). Even if she moved in to care now, they would not last more than a year so there's no way she could pay for long term care without selling her home. This is one of my major concerns with Brother's plan to move in with her. Unfortunately he completely refuses to accept this as even a possibility- his opinion is that mum will not go in to residential care 'no matter what'. As such, he will not discuss any situation where she would need to sell her house.

Sadly I can't see any situation where we don't end up with huge arguments between me and brother. In his view the only possible option is for family to care for mum for the rest of her life and that I am basically uncaring and evil for not agreeing to do whatever is necessary to make that happen. I know that as things progress he will continue to fight against paid carers/residential care and will expect me to take on more and more. Obviously if we had come to a joint decision that we planned to care for mum at home without paid carers I would expect to do my fair share but I really don't think this is the best for mum so I definitely won't be giving up my own life to make it happen. I have done some research on Extra Care places and this looks to me to be a much better option for mum - with space of her own but communal areas if she wants to socialise and carers on hand if needed. It looks like some places do accept dementia patients (which I know is an issue with standard assisted living) so it would be a much gentler transition to more care over time than being at home and moving to a nursing home when things become very bad. It would also allow us to visit and have time to do nice things with her, rather than always being in a rush to take her to appointments, do jobs around the house, organise her bills etc.

@bigdogpaws if your mum still has capacity are the PoA and wills all done? Who has PoA for finances? What is your brother’s plan with his current house if he moves into your mum’s? Is it rented or owned? What does he plan to do if your mum gets to the point her care needs are too great for them? Are there enough savings to pay for a care home for a couple of years or more without needing to sell your mum’s house? If there isn’t where will he live if she has to go into care? I know you say he isn’t planning her to go into care ever but no one knows how this will progress. The ‘plan’ needs to cover all possible eventualities.

Also, if your mum is leaving the estate jointly to you both, could your brother afford to buy you out of the family home? Or will you then be the bad person for asking them to sell ‘their’ home?

I think giving your mum and him info on the dementia progression, treatment of the house in the financial assessment process if he lives there, support options etc is the best you can do. Also talking to your mum about where she would like to live. My parents lived in an extra care housing community in a spacious 2 bed flat with social events, restaurant, onsite managers and onsite carers as their health declined. Dad had Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia as well as heart failure and he actually died there. He never needed a care home - mum had worse Alzheimer’s than him so was definitely not looking after him. It was the carers, me visiting and staying often and the managers and their friends who lived there. Is your mum open to moving out of her big house? Are any of these close by to you? This is the organisation who owned the flat my parents lived in.
https://www.housing21.org.uk/

@rookiemere @BestIsWest I think I'm OK about the diagnosis. It feels like the last year has been a constant battle to try to manage mum's 'situation' with lots of well meaning people trying to explain away individual symptoms/experiences as something mundane. Obviously it's not a pleasant thing to be told but I knew there was definitely an underlying problem and at least with a diagnosis we have a better understanding of what's happening, how to manage it and what may happen next.
@choux Interesting to hear about the different progression with vascular dementia. I totally agree with everything you say about brother needing to understand what he's dealing with. Unfortunately, he and his partner see me as the bad guy for pushing for dementia assessment (even though Mum broached the subject first and was very keen for me to help her with this), and even more so for suggesting looking at all care options. There is no way that they will act on advice or suggestions from me and both share a belief that they know better than anyone else and 'it will be OK'. The best I think I can do is to keep sending mum back to them with copies of information 'from the doctor'. I suspect his partner may not be quite as on board with the plan as Brother is claiming but there is no way she would disclose that to me. If they want to become Mum's carers and can do it properly, then of course this is nothing to do with me and very kind of them. But my fear is that they will very quickly find that it's not sustainable and will expect me to sort it out when everything goes wrong, or will deny that they can't cope because they don't want to lose her house.
The most difficult thing at the moment is that mum does have capacity so can make her own decisions but lacks the ability to really consider her options and make an informed choice.

Hope you are ok @bigdogpaws. The diagnosis can be a shock even if you are expecting it.

I’m after recommendations for rehydration thingies for DM. She’s definitely not drinking enough. I’ve read up on Jelly Drops but you only seem to be able to buy them in bulk. DM doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth so I’m not sure if she’d like them. Anyone got any experience?

@bigdogpawsYour brother needs to be made fully aware of what late stage dementia involves before making any decisions. She might simply be a forgetful but sweet lady now but as it progresses you could all be looking at personality changes, never being able to leave your DM alone even for 5 minutes, nighttime wandering, double incontinence, excoriation, anxiety and distress PLUS anything medical which arises.

The medication your mum gets will potentially slow down the progression of the Alzheimer’s but there is no treatment for vascular dementia. Looking after her heart with the correct medication will possibly help though. Also vascular dementia can progress faster than late onset Alzheimer’s and the progression can be in steps down as circulatory events happen while Alzheimer’s is usually a long slow but steady decline. So while she might not live as long as she would if she only had Alzheimer’s, she could move quickly through the early stages and need quite extensive caring relatively quickly.

I would suggest he visits a nursing home to see exactly what your mum’s future could hold.

Were you ok with hearing the diagnosis @bigdogpaws. I know you already knew, but I still found it hard the first time the doctor used the dementia word.
Your B is such an idiot. I would spell out your concerns to SIL who likely won’t want to have to pick up the heavy lifting if it comes to physical care( and who would blame her).

Your poor sister in law @bigdogpaws. What does she think about all this, because she will end up nursing an old lady with dementia if they have nowhere else to go.

Why are brothers like this. I still remember the incredulity in my brother's voice when I told him the sheltered housing said my mother was no longer suitable for their place when she was discharged from hospital, due to mobility issues plus suffering incontinence etc. Like dementia is not a degenerative condition.

We now have a formal diagnosis for mum- mixed alzheimers and vascular dementia. Neither of these is a shock to me, given her symptoms, but I was slightly surprised at how definitive the diagnosis was given that Brother came along to each of her assessments and was desperately trying to give the impression that there there was just a bit of normal age related slowing down and some anxiety/loneliness that could all be 'fixed' by family being around more. I have a tiny bit of hope that perhaps now he (or at least his partner) will be prepared to properly consider what her future care needs might be and less quick to make promises that he won't be able to keep. It's become very clear that so far he hasn't done any research in to dementia- his comment to me was 'I thought alzheimers was just another word for dementia, so what's this other thing?' I am no expert either but just googling 'dementia symptoms' when I first suspected a problem brought up information about various types of dementia. I have printed some information and suggested he reads it.
Mum should be starting some medication soon, but I'm very much aware that it's a case of slowing deterioration, not reversing or stopping it. My real worry now is that, especially if she responds well to medication, he will want to push forward with his plan to move his family in with mum without properly thinking it through. I very much doubt that he will want professional carers coming and going when she really needs it, and won't want to sell the house if/when it gets to the stage where she really needs more than can be provided at home. I also doubt that he has considered that this is unlikely to be a short term thing and she could need care for years in a situation where she barely recognises him and can do very little for herself. Unfortunately it's impossible for me to have a sensible conversation with him about any of this because there mere fact that I have questioned/suggested something makes him double down on his opinion.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will check them out. The Memoryboard looks interesting because I can send stuff from my phone and so can the people who call in to her. But I will have to read it through, because if one of them put a message up and then another did the second one might overwrite the first.

Mum is getting a little less panicky about DB. We have had several days of her calling him multiple times a day to check on him, sometimes forgetting what operation he had, and then also phoning me multiple times to complain that she hadn't heard anything from him and perhaps I should bring her down to check that he wasn't unconscious and needing help.

For DM I made a flip chart type thing which went in a salesman's ringbinder.

One sheet for each day of the week but each sheet had 'yesterday', 'today', 'tomorrow'.

Additional post-it notes which could be stuck on a particular day eg 'haircut today at 3pm'.

I looked at the MemRabel there were several price points. The Alzheimer’s Society suggested they might be of use.
https://www.easylinkuk.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1803

In the end I realised my Mum’s dementia was too far advanced.

I saw you mentioned her eyesight was bad so you probably want the bigger one
https://memoryboard.com/products/15-6-inch

I’ve seen weekly organiser whiteboard type things in Hobbycraft or Rymans? Spaces for each day of the week - could they each write in which day they’re coming?

Hi @BlackAmericanoNoSugar (which is exactly how I like my coffee!) my parents used to have a Rosebud dementia reminder clock which has 20 preset reminders or you can apparently personalise them but using a USB stick so you need to go there and plug it into the clock.

However this says it can be set with messages from anywhere. I have never used it but it sounds good. Otherwise a large metal board with the days of the week on and magnetic strips saying ‘Sally coming today’ which Sally puts on the next day she is coming before she leaves would work if your relative can still remember what day it is.
https://memoryboard.com/products/10-1-inch

I need a recommendation for a 'thing' please. I'm not what exactly the 'thing' is, but it might be some sort of whiteboard.

The problem is that Mum can't remember what she has been told (in person or by text). So Mum has a woman who goes to her in the mornings, usually four days a week but she is the single mother of small children so she misses some days. There is my cleaner who goes in two afternoons a week and they go out on 'adventures' (usually one of the many, many plant nurseries around here). My cleaner, her DH and her DD have various health issues so the exact afternoons get changed around because of appointments etc. There is a gardener who comes twice a week, but his DM is very ill so he sometimes has to cancel at short notice.

The issue with Mum is that I know that they are all keeping her informed but she gets really pissed off that, from her point of view, people are simply failing to turn up with no notice. I need something that's visible, with the days of the week that various people can write in whether they expect to be there or not. It won't help with last minute cancellations but at least if they know ahead of time it's something that she can look at.

My absolute ideal would be something electronic that I could update remotely, but I expect that would be horribly expensive if it even exists. I could, in theory, set up a calendar on her iPad that I could access remotely, but she wouldn't ever look at it, it really needs to be a thing on a wall that she can see whenever she's in the room (in large writing because her eyesight is bad).

@Choux belated condolences to you and your brother.

@GnomeDePlume hugs.

It got put back repeatedly because of the weather, but success! - Elderly Relative has been taken to the local Apple Store and has got new kit and an issue sorted out. As she pretty much organises her whole life via phone/pad, this is ... Important.

Also I may be able to organise a trial of someone coming to cook and freeze meals - we'll see how it goes, because (as I'm sure you all know) the ability of ERs to sabotage something good "Just Because" should never be underestimated.

Another one here who's taken to paying extra for refundable/reschedule-able travel and staying within the EasyJet Zone.

GP has once more demonstrated that he is a waste of clean underwear.

DM is frequently quietly distressed - a lot of quiet crying. DB and I asked if she could be prescribed something which would help her with this.

GP's solution was to prescribe her a heavy duty antipsychotic which would apparently leave her pretty much out for the count. DB and I have agreed that she shouldnt be given this. CH nurse has agreed but there is a fair turnover of staff so at some point she is going to get given it I expect.

When our DM died, we were mainly ruthless with her possessions.

She was very tidy so it wasn't too difficult.

One of my sisters was a hoarder, and she tried to take everything, but as she couldn't drive and had no car, she just stuffed a large suitcase full of things, and dragged it on a train journey from London to Huntingdon.

I bet her DH was thrilled when she got back to their house.

I took some nice blouses of my mum's. And we shared the jewellery which hadn't been disposed of by DM's will.

Sorry for your loss @Choux. I think keeping sentimental items or items with a memory attached makes sense. I have the odd nice scarf or good quality cashmere jumper of my Grandmother's that my mother gave to me after she passed, which are lovely yet I feel closest to her when I garden.

Due to the flood at my Aunt's place we had to clear out a lot quickly and have ended up with a lot of things that we wouldn't have kept otherwise clogging up our house.

When I feel our stuff is getting too much I go through a phase of throwing one thing out a day. I always have a box on the go for charity shop donations and occasionally Ill try and sell something that might be worth the effort. It's surprisingly effective.

Thank you for the update @Choux. Deciding what to do with possessions is so difficult. There is no right answer, but our house is already so full of our own stuff that it kind of makes the decision for me. Really need to have a thorough clean out, but never find the right time. Still I probably have a good 20 years before it matters.

Thank you for all your kind messages. I went back to my hometown on Tuesday and my brother and I cleared mum’s room and took a card and some treats for all the staff. My brother then left to fly home and yesterday I registered the death and then came home.

I kept just one item of mum’s clothing - a blouse she wore on her 90th birthday. My dad was alive then so there too and she was dotty from dementia but still happy and it was a really nice evening. My brother was trying to save her handbag, random soft toys in her room and everything! I said no.

@Lastknownaddress you could take photographs of all the crafted items you're not keeping, so you could look through them any time you want to, without the burden of the space they're taking up? Apologies, you have probably already done this, but just thought I'd mention it. x