Can just tell you that " going in to a home" can be a positive experience?

[Helenluvsrob]

Mum died in February. I had great support on here. She had been ill such that it limited her enjoyment of life for about 8 months,and in an out of hospital on a pretty much steady downward course. Sad but for her a release definitely. My only regret is I didn't recognise earlier that really this was a pre terminal/terminal phase when she went in at Xmas. I shouldn't have let them keep treating her in hospital, and should have got her home to drink gin and baileys instead of fortisips .

Anyway. Dad has dementia and other physical stuff that goes with being 91. He's also always been very looked after.

He went into respite on Xmas Even when Mum was admitted and eventually moved to a care home 10 mins walk from me in May. He falls and can't be left alone even at night but is very much on the " pleasant" end of dementia.

It hasn't all been smooth- he looked like a tramp when they gave him " choice" as to weather to get up and dressed etc and I'm sure they are still no onto things like the fact that he can't clean his own dentures properly.. And he's lost various things that they've just not kept an eye on -a pair of shoes for instance!

However he is safe,clean (ish!) well fed and pretty content. Definitely the easiest resident I think. (mum didn't even really manage to feed them for the last few months, she had no appetite so assumed he didn't really either and he didn't remember he had only had half a sandwich)

More than anything I can work all day not worry. I can mostly sleep at night ( though I do jump when the phone rings still, that wont change) .

Dad is I think, as happy as he can be without Mum. He sees me several times a week ( before he was 90 mins drive away), over the summer the kids have been popping in and out too ( it's so near they just walk up). We can just go and have a coffee and an aimless chat. We take him out at least once a week for a few hours. He's walking better than he was and is more animated.

Yes its a gazillion quid , but it's dads money. There isn't a lot else that he wants to spend it on after all!

Tomorrow I'm having my 1st full day trip as long as the weather is good. We're going to the safari park!

I got some school name tapes done for my mum's clothes which has helped with errant clothes especially underwear.
Apparently she's the only one out of 18 that has this

helenluvsrob thank you for this, am in the process of identifying a home for DM who has had a major stroke and needs nursing staff to be around 24/7. DF died at the beginning of the year and I think the stroke was a reaction (in part) to his death. DM wants to go into a home which makes it easier but I just hope I can find her a good one. Sadly she doesn't want to go to the closest home but am hoping to find one close (ish) so that I can pop in and see her. I'm glad your dad seems to be doing well and am hoping that the stress will ease up on me once she is in a good care home (she's currently in hospital).
AlisonWunderland thank you for the tip re clothes labels, had an email from the school about this, it feels like I'm packing mum off to boarding school. Did you get iron or stick on tapes? Am thinking about their industrial washing machines in the care homes. Don't fancy hand sewing hundreds of labels!

Melfish I got " just stick" school labels from, I think woven- labels.co.uk or similar. Can't recommend them enough. You do just stick thrm on the silky clothing label and they stay put. They also work on the million other things you need to label from shoes, to CD player and glasses to all the different components of his wheelchair !

If anyone can find a way to label teeth though.....

Mum was the label sewer, I don't have the patience. She labelled all the the kids uniform fron reception for dd1 to about 2yrs ago when dd2 was 14. Lots of dads stuff is already labelled - hats have neat sewn tags ( oftrn my old school ones folded and reused lol ) but where she thought he was going to leave his trousers - some of these are labelled!

Anyway, I digress. Had a fabulous day today. Took dad, ds and dS gf to the safari park. Dad loved it. Might take him a day to recover from the excitement of a whole day out tjough!

Yeah, care homes can be okay esp if your relative can potter about a bit, enjoy the TV and eat their own food, it's a different thing altogether to someone who cannot communicate and is reliant on others.

In the latter instance, you need to check they are getting enough to drink. Some care homes are such that you wonder if they aren't authorised to run some bastardization of the Liverpool Pathway on the sly, separating the wheat from the chaff by dehydrating them. Should they die from that, the coroner will rule it is of 'natural causes'. It's a get out of jail free card for the home.

You should not let your elderly relative within sniffing distance of a care home unless you have got Lasting Power of Attorney in Health and Welfare, same goes for hospitals. You probably won't do it, cos it's over a grand to get, with no immediate return for your money. But without it, the care home OWNS your relative, irrespective of whether you are self funded, or at least they do once your relative is deemed to have lost mental capacity. This can happen v suddenly, as with a severe stroke, or so gradually, as with advanced Parkinson's, that it is on you before you know it.

GPs and so on tend not to flag this up in advance, though they are quick to raise it after the fact. This could be because PoA enables you to read their medical notes and pick up on medical malpractice, leaving them and care homes vulnerable to lawsuits.

I don't know of any dodgy care home exposed by a GP or social worker, do you? It's only ever by concerned relatives or undercover journalists. That should give you an idea about who is in bed with whom.

On a lighter note, don't take wool clothes into a care home, they just get bunged in the wash and ruined. Most homes are quite warm even hot so it's not like they'll be needed anyway.

Prof Dent why does an LPA cost a grand to get? We did it ourselves without using a lawyer and it did not cost anything.

Anyone interested can phone the Office for Public Guardian to be reassured that you don't need to employ solicitors.

Fair enough, I heard from someone else it cost a grand, they did go through solicitors I think. We never got the chance to find out. Now we face going through the Court of Protection - now that really is far from straightforward, needs a solicitor and will cost over a grand. So all the more reason to do as Needmoresleep says, and download a copy from the Office of Public Guardian.

Note, PoA in Health and Welfare is NOT the same as PoA in Finance. Even if you hold the purse strings, you can get overruled.

ProfDent that is utter rubbish about LPA costing a grand. You can do it yourself on line and the costs are pretty modest.

Have you got care homes and nursing homes mixed up? Agree you need to be on the ball re care in nursing homes but care homes are IME ( both with dad and professionally) obsessed with eating and drinking and weighing patients ( and reporting every gram of weight loss!). If a relative needs lots of help to eat and drink and is at risk of " being dehydrated and bumped off" by stealth a care home would be too terrified to touch them!

But if anyone feels their relative is being " dehydrated by stealth" or any other mistreatment they only have to flag and adult safeguarding vase with soc services and pretty much a " swat team" scares the crap out of everyone concerned!

Yeah, alright, I only heard it costing a grand from one person, I took their word for it. Maybe it cost them a grand going through the solicitor.

I have only ever experienced nursing homes. Though nursing homes and care homes are not mutually exclusive. As I stated, I am talking about residents who cannot communicate, and in those instances we are usually talking nursing homes.

As for flagging stuff up with social services.... well, erm, really? Why do you read so many tales of relatives complaining about shoddy care in the local press? If it's so easy to raise it with social services why does it not happen more often? A) You will antagonise the very people who are looking after your relative, not a great move B) No contact details for Social Services at the care home usually, they remain very much out of sight and off the radar funnily enough. C) Whisper it, but social services are, hmmm, how shall we put this? Not necessarily as motivated as you might think to address care home failings. Almost as if, well, they might be in cahoots with them. Almost as if they have a cosy deal going on where nursing homes provide care on a shoestring, social services provide the clientele. Not saying that actually happens of course. Just as if. D) Care homes ie nursing homes have been known to join forces with social services to get complaining relatives barred from the premises.

In other words, complain and we can bump off your rellie.