To think families are going to have to look after their own old people?

[ElderAve]

It's not a judgement, the idea fills me with dread but how else are we supposed to pay for it? In a world where:

• It's political suicide to suggest that people who have valuable homes, they are no longer living in should use that value to pay for care.
• Everyone should be paid a proper living wage.
• We have increasing numbers of people needing care.

For example, between DH and I we have 4 elderly parents, still very much fit and well, but realistically, that can't carry on forever. Those parents have 4 working offspring.

I don't know how many residents a care home worker can care for but let's say it's 12, which to provide 24hr care means 3 shifts, so the equivalent of 1 full person to care for our 4 parents. That means that the state needs to raise tax equivalent to 1 (living wage) salary from the four of us and that's before paying for schools, hospitals etc.

Obviously not everyone has elderly parents needing care but those will often be heavy users of the schools system and we still need to pay for all the other services.

I just can't see how the state can do it, if they keep promising not to take the elderly's homes, which is so emotive.

I think families whose elderly relatives are nice & compliant & want to be cared for when they become infirm are lucky.

But when you have those elderly who want to continue living in their own home; whose idea of independence means they don't want help or care either & are deemed to 'have capacity' to refuse this as is their right - but they are physically & mentally infirm - that's when a caring family have a big problem.

As I said it's really hard to watch someone you love refusing your care & the care of professionals to the extent that literally everything in the flat is covered in dried shit & spilt food including the individual you love.

To watch things deteriorate for months , to have the individual become abusive when you try to clean up or offer a shower, when they are so unwell the state actually puts in free carers to wash the individual & they are shouted at & told to leave..
When the tablets that keep the person well are all over the floor but she insists that yes, she's taken them & you're sure she hasn't..

It was heartbreaking when it happened to my Nan & it was only once she become a danger to herself & others that the doctors decided that actually, she didn't have capacity & sectioned her that we could relax & know she was ok.

My Nan had the money for carers, that wasn't the issue, she just didn't want to know & she didn't want her own family caring for her either as she was too proud & stubborn.

I can see these traits in my mum & her brother unfortunately.

Until there’s a compulsory ‘work for the dole’ scheme in place, suggesting those who’ve worked all their lives forfeit their hard earned assets while we have people who’ve claimed benefits for decades for no good reason receiving free care is definitely political suicide.*

If there is actual work then it should be paid for with minimum wage, not 'the dole' of £73/week, that is making unemployment (and VERY few people claim unemployment for decades statistically, most who are in receipt for the jobseeker part of UC are not on it for decades), because otherwise you are effectively making community service, which is given as a punishment for criminal behaviour, a punishment for being unemployed. You are punishing people who in all likelihood have also paid NI contributions for years for being made redundant or becoming infirm (increasingly common now the pension age has also been suddenly increased).

If you tar everyone with one brush, all who claim unemployment benefit are skivers who have never worked in decades, then you can do the same to people who have assets because many of those have also nt 'worked hard all their lives' but were lucky, bought on the cheap and benefited from house price inflation or inherited.

The social problem is not people living longer; it's people living longer with very little mental or physical function
In the old days, if you were lucky to live that long, you fell to bits and died. Medicine has advanced so now we fall to bits and have no life, but we're not dead. The final step could take decades

This ^^

At some point we need to accept that not everything can be survived or is even worth surviving, but that's not easy with the constant expectations that "something should be done"
Even pneumonia - once called the old person's friend - sometimes seems to be treated because it can be rather than giving proper consideration to the whole picture, and so another senior patient's "cured" just to suffer further

Sooner or later this will need to change, but how we get there is anyone's guess

Why are care homes so expensive?

Adequate facilities;
safe staffing levels.

I see no problem in funding your own care if you can.

but I see no point in life with advanced dementia, permanently confused and terrified and having to have everything done for you. I wouldn't wish that on anyone and if I get a dementia diagnosis, I don't want that inevitable progression. Legalised euthanasia as an option please.

Marshmello people with advanced dementia don't sit quietly in the corner though - if you're unlucky they reorganise the fridge with the hands they've just used to smear their own stool onto the carpets and soft furnishings with, then try to cuddle the toddler whilst swearing at you like a sailor and throwing things at you because they think the toddler is you and you are a stranger who's broken into the house.

Obviously you can't just decide not to get dementia.

I suppose I'm an 'old' person now at 70. Always been well and I suppose I still am but was taken to hospital last April, where I stayed for eight days, following a minor accident (had loads of tests and x-rays, CT, MRI and all was well but I was concussed and bruised). My hospital experience was so grim it made me vow never to go in again unless it really cannot be avoided.

I was more than happy to care for my mother in law, earlier than that my father in law was ill and husband and I helped out as we did with his grandmother. Both of my parents died unexpectedly which was not much fun for me at the time but did mean I didn't have to look after them - though I would have done.

Thing is, with my mother in law and husband's gran, they had carers, we didn't have to be with them 24/7 but we did a lot every day including personal care, laundry, shopping and cooking. It doesn't last forever.

I will pay for any care I need, no problem, but sincerely hope I never do need it or at least not for a long time. My son will be happy to oversee everything and help as much as he can, I know that, but he has own life to lead and often works abroad.

It seems odd to me that people are scared of caring for their elderly relatives when families always have done that. It has to be organised around your work and own family, etc, but not an insurmountable problem and there is help available.

Marshmello - you have rather a rosy view of what your old age may consist of. Elderly people are not just a bit doddery and forgetful. My mil was abusive, doubly incontinent, had to have a full body hoist for movement and, as is usual with dementia sufferers, had no sense of the 24-hour clock so could be wide awake all night and asleep all day. This was worse before she was immobile. You imagine someone rampaging around at 3 in the morning swearing and pooing and think whether you would be like your family coping with this.

I agree heartily with supersimkin2's observations. People are increasingly living too long with a very poor or even zero quality of life. The "Do Not Resusitate" only applies to major health traumas such as heart attacks and strokes. Any illness such as pneumonia etc has to be treated. People are still given statins, diabetic drugs, blood-thinning drugs etc even if it is debateable why they are being preserved. If someone is physically healthy but has lost almost all brain function they can still plod on for years.

meredintofpandiculation I hope posters have noted your post re Mrs Smith, Mrs Green etc. It should be a socially shared risk. Also the very rich and very poor won't be as affected as the lower paid person who has bought a terraced house. It is also worth pointing out that if your parents are over 90 you could be in your 60s supporting them. Yet again some people have high care needs at 75 and it is their spouse looking after them. Previous generations would have died of things that are now survived.

As for euthanasia, well there was one awful case in a European country that I remember where a lady had said to euthanise her if she got dementia.

Well, she got dementia & she decided then that she didn't want to die but it was too bad, the doctors held her down & killed her.

I've nursed many older people & for those few that are depressed & say they want to die there are many more who are poorly in hospital, who often have dementia, who have expressed their fear of dying & their wish to recover & live for a bit longer... the human will to live is actually very strong.

Don't assume that just because you feel a particular way now that you won't feel differently in the future.

You can't take your home and savings with you into the grave and the next world and the sad reality of dementia is that by the time you need nursing care you are no longer aware of who is funding it or how. Preserving people's homes benefits their benefactors not them.

I’m going to sell my house and have a brilliant time-then throw myself at the mercy of the state. I believe in euthanasia too after watching my lovely mam live as a shell of her former self. I would take my own life but I may forget.

It seems odd to me that people are scared of caring for their elderly relatives when families always have done that

Thats because looking after someone with dementia who is losing cognitive ability, lashing out physically at you and shouting abuse at you IS scary. Its all fine looking after a sweet old lady who bakes gingerbread men like you see on the telly but when older people get dementia their personalities change. As someone upthread said- its scary looking after someone who smears poo everywhere and constantly forgets who you are. That is the reality for many families caring for loved ones with dementia. Its very very very distressing

The problem arises when two people need the same thing (eg care) but one has to pay while the other has no money so gets it for free. That’s unfair. Either everybody should pay or nobody should.

How's it unfair? It's means tested.

Two people need the same thing (e.g. secure housing) but one has to pay for it because they earn enough money while the other gets it free because they don't. That's unfair. Either everyone gets it free or no one gets it free.

For those who dont want to live with poor quality of life please set yourself up an Advance Decision right now (I have one - fit and healthy at 62 but seen too much advanced dementia to want that for myself).

compassionindying.org.uk/making-decisions-and-planning-your-care/planning-ahead/advance-decision-living-will/

An advance decision enables you to make decisions now about what care you would refuse if you didn't have capacity to choose for yourself - eg if you have dementia in the future then you can choose now not to be treated for pneumonia or heart failure. It takes the burden off your family and it's legally binding (unlike a DNAR or ReSPECT form). Free, easy, do one now.

People who think nursing the elderly should be done by the family, would your husband provide personal care for your mother? Or would that fall to you?

I think for 'family', we can usually read 'women'.

I think for 'family', we can usually read 'women' yep most probably- I’m not looking after my mother in law though!

None of us wanted to put our elderly dad in a home but I didn't have the space for him and I cannot expect my sil's to care for him either. I could have moved in with him I guess , but then I would have had to leave my own family to fend for them selves and given up work and probably ended up divorced! Plus I'm not sure his council would have allowed me to live there anyway !
You have to give up your own life to care for folk with dementia : not many can or will it have the space it's not that easy. If I win the lottery and had room for an annexe then I would take him out of there but that won't happen either. It was the only thing we could do for him in the end. Not pleasant and it was horrible but what is the alternative sometimes?

My mother was diagnosed with dementia a couple of years ago, she is a narcissist and was emotionally abusive to me as a child so i have no intention of looking after her, i do help with things like form filling, online shopping ,etc. She runs my elderly father ragged and is abusive to him and to the paramedics she keeps calling out, so no way am i accepting that from her.
I have teens at home, one who is home educated and i work PT, not sure how i would manage my mother too as she is constantly calling for attention day and night.

Yes, the burden falls to women. And would I have looked after my df and dm (who died relatively young) - yes. The pil? No. I suppose I might have considered it if mil hadn't had dementia and fil hadn't been an arse.

I think that there is going to have to be a sea change in how elderly people are cared for. My local hospital has three "elderly care" wards and on an ordinary ward (apart from maternity!) probably 90% at least of the patients are very old. There surely must be a return to geriatric or cottage hospitals. Care homes routinely send their ill elderly to hospital (especially if they are council funded and not juicy self-funders) and there they stay for weeks/months on end, occupying acute beds but with no viable alternative place in which to be cared for.

This is why I smoke. So that I'll die of lung cancer or some form of cancer when I'm in my 70's and my DS will get our house and it not be sold to pay for me to sit into my 90's peeing and pooping myself and not knowing what year it is!

Of course that isn't my real logic but I'd rather have an illness that will see me at home for the duration then I'll be taken to hospital to die. I don't want my DS having to care for me or forfeit his inheritance just to keep me alive but with no lights on.

All my grandparents died of cancer in their late 70's. They were at home then went to hospital 'when the time came'. No one had to care for them for more than the few months while they were ill then the hospital took over for the final moments

I would never recommend 3generational living. It destroyed my childhood and left me with no more than a merely cordial relationship with my mother.

People who think nursing the elderly should be done by the family, would your husband provide personal care for your mother? Or would that fall to you?

I think for 'family', we can usually read 'women'.

So true. And in my case, my brother would actually be very willing to help me and my sisters with looking after my mother, but she can't bear the thought of it. She has continence problems etc and she wants female carers. And I can understand that, because I strongly believe that women, of any age, should have their boundaries respected.

So it's tricky, because on the one hand I fully support my mum's right to be cared for by women only, yet in doing I'm having to take on more work myself.

My mum’s care home is great. She has an en-suite, her own furniture, a designated carer as well as general staff, all facilities from hairdressers to chiropodists, the food is good and they have planned activities, some of which are off-site. She has Parkinson’s and a heavy meds regime.
Visitors are welcome any time. Before that, she was barely coping with visiting carers and family support for 3+ hours a day in a big house on her own. A good care home is an excellent choice for her.
This sanctification of caring for your parents in your own home is emotional blackmail for many who are not in a position to cope fir a myriad of reasons, and other women hoiking bosoms anthem and clucking is unreasonable.

anthem?
At them