Guilt over elderly grandparents care

[supermariossister]

My grandfather is 81 in 2 weeks time, his mobility and confusion has been getting steadily worse over recent months the confusion especially, but my grandmother has stuck her head in the sand and blocked our attempts to get any help, social services wouldnt get involved without their agreement. We had finally through begging his doctor to do a home visit started the ball rolling for dementia diagnosis through the memory clinic. He had had 9 falls in 6 weeks where either an ambulance was called or me/my sister were called by my grandmother until 5 weeks ago i got there to absolute chaos and him trying to take a box of pills due to not wanting to live in pain constantly. I called the mental health team and he was taken into hospital where he was for 5 weeks, he was diagnosed with delirium and has steadily got worse making no sense, can't hold a conversation, now doubly incontinent which he wasnt when he went into hospital. Cannot stand up alone.He has just been released to respite care for assesment and although the staff are lovely, i feel so guilty like me sending him into hospital has done this to him, i know on her bad days my grandmother blames me as he wasnt this bad at home she has said so. He was such a strong proud man and it feels like the beginning of the end :(

I know noone can really help but if anyone has experienced similar id appreciate not feeling alone and like the worst person in the world right now.

You did what was best and it was inevitable that his health would deteriorate further and sadly the timing of him going into hospital has coincided with him going downhill as it were.

Sometimes doing the right thing out of love and care is the most difficult thing of all but ultimately if he hasn’t been taken into hospital he most likely would have had a catastrophic fall at home.

You did the right thing. You put him first.

I was in a similar position 10 years ago. It's shit, and you can only do so much. At one point he got pneumonia and we seriously considered refusing antibiotics for him and letting him slip away. The oft-quoted refrain in the household was "que sera sera" [whatever will be will be].

However - has he been checked for a kidney infection / UTI? DGF went down hill very quickly with lots of falls and memory loss, and the medical professionals assumed it was dementia because he was in his early 80s. Except then, after a year of hell, he had a course of antibiotics for something unrelated and he started to get better. As dementia doesn't tend to improve, we were told that it was probably a UTI or kidney infection that had caused all the falls and confusion - they tend to send the elderly doolally and it's not uncommon. He got to about 80% of where he was (including walking to the paper shop alone, which was unthinkable at one stage) and died suddenly a couple of years later of a completely unrelated cause.

He has been checked for various infections and was initially retaining hence the catheter but hes always readjusting his clothes and trying to remove them..if he can get it he pulls the catheter or pad off he just doesnt understand what they are for. I know that its the best thing for him and hand on heart i do think he would have fallen and hurt himself badly or he wouldnt be here. But then i think he would prefer that and thats an awful thing to think.
Im happy to hear that things changed for your relative, it makes all the difference i think to do those small things independently.
It is so hard isnt it. My nan is leaning on us as expected but we are cracking under pressure with jobs/kids and her refusal to be flexible.

You did your very best at the time. What else could you do? He wasn't coping at home and there weren't any other options than to get help for him.

I'm sorry you're going through this, you sound like very kind and loving grandchild.

This was me and my sister 3 years ago my sister was our nans main carer she had dementia for quite a while but it got worse quickly over a couple of months. She was admitted to hospital after we called the crisis team because she was raging about thumping everyone and everything in sight.
She was addimited to an assessment unit and was found to have very large kidney stones. After they where removed she went on a rampage about the ward again hitting kicking biting. She was sectioned and they decided she couldn't be sent home she needed specialist care in a challenging behavior
3 years on she is doing extremely well she is happy has no clue who we are but is really well looked after by who she now thinks are her family. At the time we felt we had failed and didnt really want her to go to a home but it really was the best thing the pressure and stress is gone now we just get to enjoy her again not worrying about who's going to go when she escapes out the house with no trousers on

Part of me is glad that they're on top of checking for infections, and part of me is sad that it's not something so easily resolvable.

I really don't think you should feel any guilt for what's happening. Given the information you had at the time, I can't see any other better paths you could have taken. Even with 20/20 hindsight, I would still say you have done all the right things. I doubt the current state of affairs would have been any better if you had taken a different set of decisions.

Are you involved with conversations with his medical team? I know you're not his next of kin, but prepare yourself for a discussion about a DNR (and IMHO it would be the right thing for someone in that age and condition - there's next to no chance of surviving CPR in a meaningful way).

To be completely honest we have occasionally turned on the guilt trip with DGM to get her to accept more help. I think sometimes they cannot or will not see the impact that these things have. I'm not saying I'm proud of the odd guilt trip, but at the same time she wouldn't still be in her own home if we hadn't persuaded her to accept help.

I've found that with both DGPs, often getting someone from outside the family to have difficult conversations will produce a more helpful result. This can be doctors, social services etc - or in the case of DGF when he really needed to put some trousers on he'd tell me to sod off but happily comply with the cleaner telling him to do the same thing Likewise I was working as a barmaid at the time and I discovered that communicating with drunks and dementia patients was fundamentally the same - clear instructions, no debates and physically point in the direction they need to walk

If you don't laugh with these things you'll cry. A black sense of humour often helps...