Put parents in a home

[AllOutofEverything]

This advice is often given on mumsnet and drives me mad. You can not put an adult in a home unless they are assessed as having no capacity to make that decision. It does not matter if you have power of attorney. An adult can decide if they want to go into a home or not. And that includes making decisions that are against their own best interests. They may have a better life in a home and be better cared for, but if they do not want to go, that is their decision.

Similarly family can not just decide the state will pay for a relatives residential home because they think they need to be in one and do not have enough money to pay privately. A care assessment is carried out and a decision made about whether the person needs the level of care given in a home or is fine at home with carers. You can challenge this decision of course. But if your relative is assessed as not needing a care home then the state will not pay for it.

Most people without dementia are at home with carers popping in. If someone needs getting out of bed, washed, dressed, food given and toileting, then carers visiting their home is usually what will be recommended.

Of course many people persuade a reluctant parent to go into a care home. But they still have to agree however reluctantly.

You're not pretending it is easy? Don't make me laugh. Believe me, you have no fucking idea.

We are up to our knees in muck and bullets, right now, today. Caused by the hospital discharging someone they shouldn't have.

@larchforest You are wrong. I have been a carer for a relative. I also have a disabled husband and children.

Whoops! I have to apologise to you most sincerely, @Allthegoodnamesarechosen . I misread part of your initial post.

Most people without dementia are at home with carers popping in.

I misread it as with dementia! My only excuse is that I've been living in my dementia afflicted mum's back bedroom out of a suitcase for four months. I only ever think in terms of dementia these days!!

Sorry.

I posted on one of the other threads. I've got a firm understanding of what my mum wants whilst she has capacity. She wants to stay in her own home (retirement flat) with carers. She has enough money to fund that. The only time she will go into care is if her dementia gets to the point that she goes wandering off or similar. She is also very clear that if she gets any other illness she doesn't want treatment other than pain relief. At 83, and having buried one child, she has no desire to cling to life. I get that. I think really talking about these things and having a proper mutual understanding of what adult kids are willing to do is really important. It's all down to me and we have agreed that I will do social visits, food shopping, picking up prescriptions etc. I won't do personal care. If its needed that's what her money is for. It will be upsetting if all the money she has, which came from my grandparents and in part from my Dad goes on care. But that is her choice. She could have shared that out years ago but didn't. Nothing to be done about that now.

With all due respect you do NOT know what we are dealing with right now and why, and the entire contents of your OP prove that you don't know what other people are having to deal with either.

The country isn't stuffed with elderly people who retired there. Most of them have lived in the countryside all their lives.

@dodobookends True in some parts of the country and not in others. My family are all from a small village but none of us can afford to live there anymore as retirees have moved in and pushed up rents and house prices. There are no real services beyond one small shop and a church, and very few people even around about who would take jobs as cleaners and care staff visiting people. Apparently people already complain about not being able to get cleaners.

I can't stand your tone any more OP so I'm leaving this thread.

Beats me why you aren't running the entire care system single-handed, since you know everthing, I'm sure you have them all licked into shape in no time.

I see this often on Mumsnet too. I don't think people realise how difficult it is to actually get someone into residential care these days. There are capacity issues, finances etc and getting a care assessment takes time unless the person is at severe risk in some way.

@larchforest I can sympathise completely, DF was in hospital before Christmas with a chest infection that antibiotics weren't working on, it took his GP 2 hours to convinhim he needed to gomto hospital for IV antibiotics. Once in hospital it was discovered he had a blood clot on his lung which needed treating. My DF was vile to everybody who visited and when finally discharged was so awful to my DM and so aggressive a nurse had to intervene. SS hadn't organised a care package and they expected DM to care for him at home despite his aggression. I have been called out at 2.30am to try to calm him and protect DM when he was sundowning. He won't wear incontinence pads despite being doubly incontinent because he says they are uncomfortable, won't take medication, won't eat and now has dysphasia.

The aggression got so bad DM was not allowed to be left alone with DF, on one occasion his ranting and threats went on for 5 hours until we left the house for our own safety and family members sat with him instead.

We have supported DM and DF because that's what they wanted, for DF to stay home and we did that for as long as possible. Now she cannot cope and nor can the rest of the family. DF would not help himself to stay at home by allowing carers to help, have someone sit with him so DM could go out and made visitors deliberately uncomfortable so DM was cut off from the world and there to serve his every need.

Now after we asked DF to at least have respite for a couple weeks (he refused) his aggression and her exhaustion came to a head and I called SS for help. Because DF behaviour is so bad 9 care homes refused to take him. We had to have DF sectioned and I will not apologise for that because I was watching him slowly kill DM and we were all scared to death of him and could not reason with him.

As I said before OP not everything is that black and white, I know I did the right thing by my DM and I will definitely wash my hands of the situation if she has him home after the 28 days (which I doubt she will) because I can't do it anymore and I don't think she should either.

Just make sure you let your family know not to look after you OP

It’s such a perjorative term, to “put him in a home and sell his house” sounds like the actions of a monster. I do feel some people use it in a “well, if you’re not willing to help your own mother then...” kind of way.

My parent first started to need 24-hour care when I was 38. Not possible to juggle under-5-years-old DC’s, and a full time job and being a 24-hour carer (sibling unable/unwilling to take a shift).

Its best for people to be supported to live independently for as long as possible

Carers at home and then supported living residential accommodation need to be considered well before a home.

A home should be the last place when someone can truly no longer care for themselves.

Life expectancy begins to drop as soon as someone enters a home.

Absolutely spot on. Between visits there is this idea that these relatives are sitting quietly watching daytime TV and then going to bed at a reasonable time and ot just does not work like that.

We spent all last year dealing with the fall out from an unsafe discharge.

DH had spent weeks stressing the fact that MIL needed proper care set up before she could go home, but they ignored this completely. They asked he if she needed help at home and she said no.

I won't bore you with the rest but it sounds very very similar to your situation.

It's hell, I don't know how we coped but you just have to. She died just after Christmas and we are still recovering from it all. I'm sorry you are in the same boat. Good luck.

@Tara336 You misunderstand me, I am not saying people should never go into a care home. And someone sectioned is someone who does not have capacity.

Don't worry I will not have anyone to help me at all. My Dcs and DH both have life limiting illnesses. So I have no family to look after me when I get to that stage.

I would pop in to MIL's and would find her sitting slumped in her chair at the kitchen table, staring into space. Sometimes she would be in the dark.

The morning carer would make a sandwich for lunch but MIL would forget to eat it so one of us had to go in to remind her to eat her own lunch.

Not everyone has dementia who has carers.

Problem is the parent doesnt usually have capacity.

But due to costs social care try to keep them at home as long as possible.

Usually even when it isnt safe.

In the end usually what happens is an emergency admission to hospital and they then have their care package assessed. Usually by this point the patient has no say in their care and ends up going straight into a home from hospital.

Friends and neighbours then.

Personally I think the mindset of ‘I will not go into a home but I’m perfectly happy for my children/family/friends to worry day and night about me’ is one of the most selfish things possible.

My parent went from home carers, to assisted living with carers coming in 4x a day, to a care home. Assisted living sounded good in theory but in reality it was awful - by the time she’d got settled (8 months of so?) she’d gone too far down health-wise for the assisted living place and carers to manage. IBy the end I was having to visit most days because she’d fallen or needed something or had fallen out with someone or gone for a walk and gone missing or got a letter she didn’t understand or couldn’t work the tv or whatever. It’s a 45 mile drive, each way. DC had just started primary school and I worked full time.
IME assisted living is only a good idea if they’d be likely to be able enough to live there for a few years.

@AllOutofEverything there are many people who are genuinely struggling trying to work, raise families and care for their family members with dementia. My DM would have been much better off putting DF in a home months ago but he would not go. He had capacity then and flatly refused telling GPs etc that DM was his carer and she was fine when she absolutely wasn't. My opinion is he should have been in a care home about 12 months ago minimum. Had I been able to force the issue and make it happen I would have done because it was like watching a train crash happening in slow motion. Instead we have been through a year of hell trying as family to manege until DM came close to having a breakdown and DF began sundowning, shadowing and being aggresive. I have a chronic health condition and live 130 miles from my parents and was driving there and staying a few nights a week to try and ease the burden. Had my DF been in a home earlier he may have recieved some of the extra help he needs sooner and our family wouldn't have reached the crisis point and had to have him sectioned which was a last desperate resort for help.

My mum died with care and dignity in a beautiful care home with me present . She had vascular dementia and thought she was perfectly well . I went to hell and back in the ten years lead up to that with a tiny newborn baby and a primary aged school child. I had no siblings and nobody to help me . Relative youth and tenacity got me through that decade . SS wouldn’t come anywhere near or help me because she was self funding . The pandemic lockdown became a kafkaesque nightmare of horrific proportions . You have no idea . Older people mental health services were awful too - they were hopeless - they dish out a diagnosis and a few leaflets literally and you are left to crack on . My mother thought she was living in a duplicate house and someone was living in the loft . I’d be up with sick children in the night and telling her to go back to bed on the phone whilst she screamed at me . It went on for years. SS told me to leave out a a flask of hot water so she could have a cup of tea if I wasn’t there after I filled out the care assessment forms …. It was only hospital social worker who finally got something done in the end to sort out capacity . Nobody wanted to do a dols or section mum as she wasn’t violent . She still had a Mexican stand off in the care home garden and would not go in one time ! That said we paid for the very best( not necessarily the one that looks the fanciest ime ) . The costs are huge they must be approaching 2k a week now I would have thought. My mother said she cared for her mother in her old age . All I recall is a few visits a year where my grandmother came to stay and she died in her mid 70s . @larchforest there’s the lovely cockroach thread on the elderly people forum here . There’s great advice there x take care . My mothers carehome was the best option in a desperate desperate situation partly caused by the complete breakdown of social care in this country :