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Dementia & Alzheimer's
How 'bad' does someone need to be to go into a care home?
birdybirdbird · 16/12/2016 18:20
Hi. I've posted about my mum a bit recently so you can search back if that helps any advice you might give but here's a quick recap:
She's 58 and has Korskoffs (alcoholic dementia), alongside epilepsy, bipolar and hearing loss.
She's worsened a lot recently - whilst she's fairly lucid at times, at her worst she's probably got a short term memory of about 10 minutes and will make the same phone call, repeat questions etc etc. She's causing a to of stress to friends and neighbours - whilst I am based 200 miles away.
She's started becoming quite aggressive - shouting, swearing at neighbour and has, this week, grabbed their child...
She's got herself into a huge financial mess
She's 'not bothered' about anything anymore - never asks questions about me, doesn't watch TV, doesn't want to go out and I'm not really convinced she's eating properly...
GP, social services and mental health team do seem to be pulling their finger out. I think her going for the neighbours kid has triggered safeguarding issues and GP and mental health are supporting us to SS with requests for housing etc etc. But this still seems to be happening at a snails pace...
Anyway, my question is - How 'bad' do symptoms have to be to look at a care home rather than sheltered housing? She has openly said to DR etc that she can't live by herself anymore and wants to go somewhere else. She understands and is ok with the idea of selling the house to sort this (we own it 50:50) I think she has sheltered housing in mind but I think would be open to something more than this. I wonder if I should actually start looking into care homes rather than waiting around for a sheltered housing spot to come up but is she severe enough to warrant this? If we start off going down the self funded route, what happens when the money runs out? LA have to step in right? Any advice?
soupey1 · 19/12/2016 11:20
Hi, I work for supported sheltered housing and we wouldn't take your mum unfortunately. The problem is most places won't take someone showing signs of dementia but dementia homes won't take someone until they are a long way down the line due to shortage of places. We are in this place with my mum at the moment, dad can;t really cope BUT she is not bad enough to get a dementia place. We can only wait until she deteriorates further and then hope to persuade SS to help!
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