AIBU to ask relatives to raise concerns about my mum directly?

[RabbitAngus]

My mum is still living on her own but has dementia. She has help, and manages ok.
I have a cousin who visits her sometimes. She means well but can be a bit overbearing. (In the past her eagerness to help meant that she tried to control the communication with doctors and nurses after mum was hospitalised after a fall. She leaves all kind of sticky notes (my mum throws them away because that’s not the way we help her remembering things.))

Today my only uncle sent me a message. He wrote that “some cousins visited my mum and noticed that she mislaid her keys. They were worried.” He suggested a panic lock.

My cousin has never mentioned this to me. An occupational therapist assessed my mum at home. They advised a key finder amongst all so she has one of those.

I feel perhaps more irritated than I should… It’s a dear (also elderly ) uncle and I don’t want to hurt him. He’s probably trying to help. But I don’t feel that I owe my cousin an explanation, and it annoyes me that she talks behind our back. AIBU unreasonable to just message my uncle that I would appreciate it when ‘this cousin’ would message my directly, and not cause more unrest for my mum?
Help is appreciated!

Your cousin cannot have legal rights to command communications with a hospital unless she already has the POA? Are you sure you know what is going on?

I would message the cousin directly.

I'm dealing with my Dad who has Alzheimer's and is living alone, this sort of interference would drive me nuts. It's so tricky to manage at the best of times, and I'm sure that like me, you have plenty of systems in place, and specific ways of doing things which your Mum understands and is conformable with. My Dad seems to cope fine until something out of the ordinary happens, or if someone interferes, and which point he becomes very distressed.

I would approach your cousin directly and explain that you are simply trying to keep your Mum's life as straightforward and familiar as you can, for her sake, and that she can contact you directly with any concerns.

That’s the best way to go I think. @UnZenXennial I recognize that, keeping to the same routine also works best for my mother.

I would tell your cousin to stop being overbearing and that her involvement will just confuse your mother more with the different way of doing things.

I just made it clear that all communication should come to me and I expected to be consulted before anyone introduces any new initiatives.

It's mostly worked. In our case though it's friends. The person I care for is young to have Dementia so their friendship group is full of capable retired professional people who all think they have the magic bullet. They also only see tiny snapshots of life and not the chaos that goes on behind e.g one created all sorts of dissent/upset about a move into a care home and my "heavy handed" decision making. Fortunately we didn't quite get to a safeguarding adults referral (about me) but it was headed that way.

The situation isn't helped as they've known me for years so I think they still see the recalcitrant teenager rather than the capable middle aged professional I am now.

Family I can generally control as it's my siblings (and much as we love to moan about each other we are pretty cohesive).