Moving in with gran who has Alzheimers

[Mamaofdos]

So my 80 year old gran was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year. She is starting to get very forgetful and is losing the ability to write. She has also had a couple of falls.

I get on very well with my grand parents and they have been a great support for me and my family over the years. I can see my grandfather is starting to struggle with my gran and they have asked if we can all live together. I have three children age 2, 5 and 8.

Can I ask what to expect living with someone with Alzheimer’s? The good, bad and ugly?

Thank you.

Well, the children might cause them more discomfort than you imagine firstly. 2 is very small....is the house large enough to keep the children away from your grandparents for at least part of the day and night?

OP I suggest reading about the progressive course of Alzheimer's - www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/stages. I am not sure I would recommend moving young children in with your grandmother as it may be very distressing for all involved over time. This also suggests you will be expected to provide a great deal of care?

So the house is fairly big in the sense our bedrooms would be upstairs. Their bedroom is downstairs. We would have a living room each. However I was thinking of converting their garage to make in to a big play room/ tv room - this is at the back of the garden.

My two older kids are at school. The youngest is at nursery and I teach part time. So essentially I will care for my gran on my days off.

My gran absolutely loves the kids and is terrified at the thought of being left alone if my grandfather dies.

I am just concerned it is not as straight forward as it seems. My husband is so laid back and is happy to move in. It just concerns me on what is to come really…

Look carefully at the financial side too. Especially if you are selling your place to move in.

Please look at www.alzheimers.org.uk/

Unfortunately it’s going to involve far more than getting a bit forgetful. There’s likely to be personality changes, poor sleep wake cycles, loss of mobility, incontinence, possibly aggression. This is tough to see your loved one go through and even harder trying to raise your own family.

While it sounds a lovely thing to do, I think you may be under estimating what it may entail. Do you live close now? It may be better to start getting some support in place now which can be increased as your Gran’s needs change and you keep your relationship as he Granddaughter intact to supplement the essential care with nice visits where you’re not duty bound to be providing care.

Definitely look into getting power of attorney for health and finances sorted while she still has capacity to make those decisions.

I think I am underestimating the situation too…I am very familiar on what to expect with the illness and I think the future is so unknown. But my grandparents have been rocks to everyone in our family and I just feel I could help support them. But it’s not as straightforward as my grandfather and husband think.

Does anyone have experience in living with someone with Alzheimer’s and having a young family?

Don’t do it, no matter how good your relationship is.

To cut a long story short we had a similar situation when my GF died and it almost resulted in social services getting involved as it became dangerous for the children.

As well as the fires etc, opening front door, putting important things in the bin there was aggressive behaviour which is common with dementia and resulted in this being directed at the children.

We also had a very near miss when medication was offered to the children as sweets.

@BooksAndHooks I am so sorry to hear your experience. This is what concerns me too. My kids are my priority but it feels unnatural not helping my grandparents too…

Although we didn't live with FIL, he threatened our DS9 with a knife! With dementia they can get very aggressive.

Please read up about the progression of Alzheimers, it's probably not as you expect. There can be aggression, anxiety, dangerous behaviour towards themselves and others, night wandering, escaping unless doors are locked and more.

This is absolutely NOT a safe environment for very young children, especially later on with the progression.

My grandfather had Alzheimers and it was quite unsettling for me as a late teen, when I was old enough to understand and help my parents. I'll never forget seeing my grandfather trying to bite my grandmother and the calm way she stopped him made me realise that this wasn't a one off and she'd been hiding his aggression from us.

I don't mean to sound negative but it's tough enough for adults, not okay for children. Saying that, you may have quite a time still for your children to visit and make good memories of their great grandmother.

My mum first showed signs of dementia when my son was 1, and died when he was 14 with severe dementia. She couldn't be left alone with him from that point pretty much as she would snap at him, go to slap him. Later, he was quite scared of her as she would spit food, throw stuff, and could be quite nasty. She also did a lot that was unsafe, or just really unpleasant like hiding pooey pants, smearing poo, generally incontinent (not nice when you go to sit on a chair) and would take stuff round the house and destroy it/hide it.
There's no way I would move small children in to be honest, and we had to really manage ds's interactions with her. And she'd loved children all her life, had been an infants teacher for 40 years, kindest, calmest person you could wish to meet. And dementia took all that and made her unrecognisable

Thank you both for your feedback. What a horrible disease…

I just thought I could manage and support everyone but clearly there are so many things I wouldn’t be able to control. As much as I think I could.

This has also been good for my husband and mum to see too. As I don’t think they realise how complicated our future could be if we all moved in together.

My friend's mum got to the stage where dhe couldn't leave her mum alone even while she was at home. While she was putting washing on the line she decided to run a bath but forgot it. The first friends mum knew was even water came through the ceiling. A few days later dhe was stripping the beds and her mum decided she wanted a cup of tea and put an electric kettle on the hob which caught fire. Do you want your children to live with that?

Sorry to sound so negative OP, there absolutely can be some lovely family times still during early Alzheimers but nobody can predict how fast it will progress. I think it's very hard to extricate yourself once it starts not working if you're all living together. Best to know in advance.

Thank you everyone for your honesty and advice. I needed to hear it. Xx