Should my parents move to be closer to me?

[Stillwearingskinnies]

My father is 80 and my mother 79. Over the last 12 months my father has declined. He struggles to find words, struggles to complete tasks, misunderstands questions when asks, keeps losing things, forgets his pin number. 12 months ago he wrote off a car and has had a couple of bumps in the new car. His golf buddies humour him but he can't really play properly - he gets confused about which direction to play the ball, mistakes a leaf for the ball although its lovely that he can play weekly and his friends help him out.
My mother keeps repeating herself and seems confused on occasion. She is more emotional lately, she had a fall in November and we're not sure why.
My mother minimises the problems and tells little lies to cover up any issues.
I took them to the GP in November and they are now in the system and I'm waiting for their memory assessments which I think will be in Feb.
The community matron came out but at the moment mum is managing well, and on paper all is fine. But I have to help out a lot with the financial side but I live 45 - 60 minutes drive away. I have a part time job and 2 teens.
My parents started looking to move closer to me last year and the plan was to move to a bungalow. They have always been fiercely independent and do not like being told what to do. They are coming round to the idea that they might need help. My mum has a few siblings and 2 of them go round quite often as they are local. But that isn't sustainable.
I suppose the question is should they move closer to me or will that lead to problems? Should they move to a bungalow or should we look at retirement villages? I am desperate for them to be closer but would it only be good for me and not them?
Sorry for all the info. I'm in a bit of a state with everything.
I have LPA for both. They have a 3 bed house with a big garden.
Also aware that dad has to stop driving. Mum hates driving so if he doesn't drive, that takes a lot away from them.

Honestly, no, they should not move house. The process will take at least six months, will be huge upheaval, and by that time things will have moved on significantly. They may not be able to manage independently in a bungalow, and a retirement village will not accept people with dementia because they disrupt the other residents.

The only move I'd be thinking of would be to a care home at some point as necessary.

If your mother has cognitive problems she will not be able to make coherent decisions, it will just be too much for her, so be prepared to do the decision making.

My mother had dementia and I arranged for companion care for her (I used Home Instead). The carer came in every day for a few hours and would do anything my mother needed - take her to the shops, do the laundry/cleaning, take her to appointments, make meals. I didn't discuss it with my mother, I told her a nice lady was coming in to help her. Fortunately my mother really liked the carer so it worked well until she had to move to a care home 18 months later.

@SleafordSods point taken.

OK couple of points. I have been there, my dad was diagnosed with dementia about 7 years ago and died in 2023.

He could not have coped with a house move, even at the early stages of dementia. Having dementia must be very scary and unsettling and even when he was in unfamiliar situations temporarily (like going to the pub for lunch) he could not wait to get home. As his condition progressed he was obsessed with "going home" but he meant back to his childhood home with his parents. I have several friends whose parents also have this awful condition and another common theme is fears over money, or strangers in the house. A move is going to be very disruptive for anyone and I would say if you had concerns about just one parent it may be achievable but no way with both of them.

Also, we all know how stretched social care teams are. If you move them close to you, the expectation is that you will step in. Do not do that. People will be along shortly to say trite things like "they raised me, now it's my turn" or "I love my parents, why wouldn't I" because they think caring means taking them to Tesco once a week and driving them to hospital appointments. When with someone with dementia, it means dealing with sundowning, incontinence and potentially aggression. IT WILL BREAK YOU. I cannot say that strongly enough. Your job is to advocate for them when they are unable to do that for themselves.

Driving - initially after his diagnosis my dad was able to drive for quite a while. He had driven since a very young age, first tractors, then all sorts of vehicles. He never had points on his licence and was an excellent driver. Initially the miuscle memory of driving was all there and he was fine to be driving the same routes he'd driven for decades. The issue was driving to the Co Op and then not remembering why he was there, or buying something random. As things progressed yes he eventually stopped driving but again that was really not easy for him as the car had been such a huge part of his life and it set off a cycle of where's the car, where are my keys, someone's stolen the car, there are bad men who have taken the car, where's the car...

Much love to you, @Stillwearingskinnies it's fucking awful having one parent with dementia never mind both. Take care of yourself and you will need support to retain your boundaries and fight for the support your parents need. Have you got siblings?

@Stillwearingskinnies does your financial POA let you act before capacity is fully lost, was this option chosen when setting them up? I have access to DM’s bank account and have a bank card for it. So can monitor their spending and pay their bills, get cash out for them etc. Moved spare money into savings account so if scammed only a small amount in current account, so hopefully can help reduce some risk with that.

I’ce just read your most recent post about your DH

Are you thinking of moving to one now?

Both of my DPs moved to one at about 80. Made friends and enjoyed to activities and facilities, gym, games room, coffee shop, restaurant and hair dressers. When my DF became very ill suddenly, already living in a flat with an ensuite wet room was invaluable.

Then when my DF died shortly afterwards, the community my DM had there helped her enormously.

My advice is, if you have a DH with a life limiting illness and your DFs are already making the move then start to look at the retirement villages around you now. One thing my DPs really liked about their’s is that it’s fairly close to a main bus route so getting anywhere is fairly easy.

A couple I know moved to one in the middle of nowhere. No buses, no shops to walk to and difficulty even getting a taxi. They lasted 6 months before they moved again. It was an expensive mistake.

@Stillwearingskinnies definitely look after yourself, it has taken a toll on my mental health looking after DM

The dementia will mean that it seems as though your parents agree with your suggestions but they won't be retained and they'll forget. It's tough, really tough.

My father refused help, wouldn't have it that there was anything wrong, insisted he could drive perfectly well (the dents in his car said otherwise) and I am 4 hours away. I reported him to the DVLA but ultimately all decisions were taken out of his hands when after a long spell in hospital they refused to discharge him home. He was sent to a council funded care home (grim) and then we moved him into a really nice nursing home. After a few weeks of him constantly asking when he was going home as he couldn't stay in this hotel much longer as they'd need his room, he finally settled in. He's well looked after. It's odd that he looks like my father but his brain is now stuck in a time before I was born..... Good luck OP - look after yourself too as you have a tough 'journey' ahead.

I’m in a similar position OP in that I live an hour away from my elderly dad and as his needs have progressed, that 2 hour round trip every time there is an emergency is soul destroying. I’d go against the grain and suggest they move but into a retirement village, assisted living closer to you. They’ll still have all their independence but if they both do turn out to have dementia, you have already put measures in place to help them and yourself. Please don’t underestimate how hard caring for elderly parents can be and a long distance makes it even harder. At this point while they’re still coping, focus on ‘future proofing’ your life - assisted living in case things get really tough.

Prioritising the DVLA is, as you have realised, an absolute priority.

These situations are always so very hard. One thing to be clear about is that if a major life change, like a house move, is to happen, you need to plan for this to cause a deterioration in their functioning ability. People with, or just developing, dementia often function by the skin of their teeth when they are in familiar surroundings, but a move makes things worse.

This is not a reason not to do it, but you need to be very aware of this.

They could move to sheltered or a bungalow, deal with the deterioration, eventually get used to the new place, where everything is, routines etc. and then finish up needing a second move to residential or nursing care as the condition deteriorates.

My thoughts would be that initially it might be best to put in maximum support for them in familiar territory. The Age Concern website will give you lots of advice: www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/care/

At the point where this is no longer viable then they could look at a move to residential or nursing care, possibly nearer to you. In this way they only make one move, because the strong likelihood is that if they moved to a bungalow or sheltered accommodation now, they would eventually need another move to residential - two moves is too much.

I used to work with people with dementia.

@YellowPixie@sittingonabeach
Thank you so much, really helpful, informative and supportive posts.
And to everyone who has added their experiences, thank you
I now know that moving isn't the right thing for them. I will endeavour to get some support in place for them but I think the key thing is how to frame it so my mum is on board.

Dementia makes a big difference though because the person may keep their mental map of a familiar place for a long time but be unable to build a mental map of a new place , so they become scared and baffled about not being able to find anything or go anywhere without help.

It would be good to get SS involved sooner rather than later to make sure they have all they need to manage at home - see the website I recommended above.

Another useful thing is to do their shopping online for them and have it delivered to their home - I used to do this for my Dad who lived 150 miles away.

I agree with most of the others that it is too late to move them unless you are moving them somewhere where they will be able to receive all levels of care.

At the moment they have huge amounts of muscle memory in their house helping them find everything from the toilet to the eggs. If you move them then effectively every morning they will wake up in a strange house with no idea why they are there, how they got there or where anything is.

The story I always like to tell about my grandfather and his Alzheimer’s is that he was still able to help the “nice little girl” who visited sometimes with her piano practice (explaining it better than her teacher did) long after he forgot what her name was or the fact that I was his granddaughter.

I like to think that he still remembered I was important to him but it isn’t really true. He was a very kind man who would have helped anyone who needed it.

You can contact Adult Social Care and ask them to carry out a Care Needs Assessment for your parents. It will at least put them on the radar of local SS. If care is needed, they will sometimes point you in the direction of suitable carers. Are they in receipt of Attendance Allowance? If not, apply now - they may be eligible.

Definitely don’t move them to a new bungalow. The Alzheimer’s society do these short courses on dementia, just a few hours long, it would be really helpful to you to see if there is such a course you could go on to understand how you can help your parents best. I did one for work but I wish I had known some of the stuff earlier as it would have been helpful with my granny and other elderly relatives.

One thing they say is to think of your memories as a bookshelf with your most recent memories at the top, middle ages in the middle and your childhood at the bottom. When you shake a bookshelf the books at the top fall off first, then the ones in the middle and the ones at the bottom are the last to go. That is what happens with dementia, first it is our short term memory that goes, then we start to lose bits in the middle but the older memories stay with us the longest. From that perspective I would not move someone to a new environment that they are likely to forget as things progress.

If you move someone with dementia to a new house they are more likely to get confused and wake up wondering where they are. They are likely to forget they have moved and wander off into the streets and get lost because they don’t remember the neighbourhood. My mum’s friend has dementia, she had been denying it for a while and refusing help but now it has gone beyond confusion and gotten quite bad. A few months back I was visiting her and she started sobbing that she wanted to go home, on asking questions it seems she had forgotten entirely about living in her current house for 40 years and didn’t know why she was there. She has now had to go into care. When I visited her at Christmas she thought her 30 year old grandson was 13 and had forgotten all the younger grandkids existed. She is in a care home within 10minutes drive of her house so she gets lots of visits from her friends and family and can be taken out to cafes etc… occasionally - if she had been moved an hour away she would have been isolated from the wider community and people would be much less likely to visit or take her out. She actually seems happy in the care home, she chats away about all that is happening in her life and we don’t point out that it all happened 20 years ago as there is no point in confusing her.

My partner’s granny was in a care home near his mums for years, she had friends there and my partner’s parents would take her to their house at the weekend, take her to cafes etc… she had bad dementia towards the end. When my parter’s mum passed away her brother who tended to visit about once a year decided to move her to a care home closer to him which was around 4 hours hours away - he visited her once a week and my partner’s dad went every month but she had no visits from people she knew in between. She was very agitated by the move, she was upset, confused and deteriorated quickly dying within a few months.

My ten cents are that you should start putting together a care plan, get the basics like a cleaner and meals in place - hide the car keys!! But be prepared to move him to a care home or get in carers in the long term. There are loads of types of dementia and some develop over years but others can have a sharp decline so you may find you have to make decisions quickly.

I’ve been through all this. Moving would cause rapid decline. You need to get as much help in as you can. They will be reluctant to accept help, and there can be teething problems. However, once things are gradually put in place they will be invaluable.
I found Age UK and citizens advice useful for finding what support exists and what benefits can be applied for (Attendance Allowance is now pension disability payments or something like that).

Do you have a dementia support charity near you? We are incredibly lucky to have one nearby that acts as a support hub for people living with dementia but also supports carers (DH’s father is rapidly declining, we think it’s vascular but still waiting on a diagnosis).

Re the car, would your DF’s golf buddies be willing to pick him up and bring him home again? If so, then you can suggest that there’s an expensive problem with the car and that instead of fixing / replacing it they could use a local taxi firm, cheaper and easier in the long term.

A suggestion from our dementia support charity was to look into companion carers, people that can come in for a couple of hours a week to do an activity with DF or go out for a walk or just chat. It’s a good way of introducing carers and can make it easier if the person progresses to requiring more support as they’re used to people coming in to help.

Also, have you talked to them both about what will happen when one of them dies? Do you have an Advance Decision in place or does the LPA explicitly cover this?

I would avoid retirement flats - villages as they are an absolute bitch to resale with many people losing 50 percent and more of what they have paid
plus all the service charges have to be paid even if it’s empty and they are bastards they absolutely would take someone with dementia in and then a few months later say it’s not suitable for them and you have to move them again and sell the flat

look at maybe reorganizing the house won’t they have a spare reception room turn that can be turned into a bedroom
see about getttjng a downstairs bathroom / shower installed

stair lift if not possible so they can get upstairs easily

stuff like getting medicine delivered and food delivered is good starting pointed
also the delivery people get to know your parents

get them a ring doorbell that you have access to so you will be notified if your dad goes wandering

medical bracelets / necklaces with monitoring if they have a fall are good

a cleaner maybe once or twice a week

again it’s people that can get to know your parents

if your dad has hospital appointments look into the hospital transport for him
my late dad used this and it was like a day out for him

KoalaKoKo’s analogy of books on a shelf is a great one - also my DFil regresses back to his childhood a lot, I think it was a safe time and it’s a comforting place to go back to.

Are their neighbours willing to keep an eye out for them as well? Agree with ChrisMartinsKisskam that a cleaner coming in a couple of times a week would be good, and look into a local volunteer patient transport service for hospital trips.

I’m so sorry, this is such a rough time in life for everyone. Honestly an hour away isn’t that far and I can’t see it being worth the disruption to get them a few minutes closer -you’ll end up being their carer and going there every day and it would only suit short term. I’d use that energy to take the car keys and start researching nearby options for soon when they’ll need extra care.

Honestly if you wouldn’t feel safe having your kids driven around by your dad you need to protect everyone else. A mile or 100 miles - a tragedy can happen at any point. It happened in my city several years ago when a toddler was run down by an older woman with early dementia, she just got confused and stepped on the wrong pedal. Horrifying nightmare for everyone. This is 100% urgent to do asap - today ideally.

Your mum has a choice to make about proactively moving to a care home or accepting help. She can’t do everything herself, it’s not sustainable.

You need to do what's the most practical thing. MIL lived about 45 minutes away from us, and we moved her into our village when FIL died - he would never have agreed to move btw.

Her last two years were awful, stressful and difficult, she had some quite serious health issues plus developing Alzheimer's. I think it would have been a hundred thousand times worse if she hadn't been virtually next door.

Previously, any problem took up at least half a day, and as DH was working away during the week at the time he was spending every weekend dealing with MIL.

I would definitely move them, but into something that will be easy to sell. A lot of retirement homes are a real millstone, hard to sell and with sky high service charges.

Totally agree with this.

One of the big things I have learnt (DM now in late stage of vascular dementia) is that you are constantly solving yesterday's problem.

Your DPs are now at the stage where a major decline could be triggered by anything. For my DM it was a fall walking home with her shopping. In less than 18 months DM has gone from independent living to bed bound requiring total personnal care including feeding.

I had to move my parents as they were living abroad. It was absolutely necessary but not good for them, it was too much to process. They lived with us for a while but both ended up in care.

Sorry to say that a care home is likely where dementia is involved. Carers can attend to physical needs but you can’t really leave someone with advanced dementia alone.

What you can do now is to start spending their money. Make sure they have fully paid up funeral plans, anticipate any imminent needs like clothing, equipment they might need at home such as a stair lift, mobility scooter etc. Once the first of them goes into care and fees are payable their money will disappear like water. If they’re likely to hit the threshold for LA funding it will be too late then to make big purchases if the remaining party needs it.

In your shoes I would be looking at care homes which are local to you while you can do so at your own pace.