How to get gran into a home against her will

[Faciadipasta]

My gran is 96. She has always said she'd rather be dead than in a home but I think she does really need to be in one.
She lives alone, she is almost blind from macula degeneration, she is almost deaf and she is showing pretty bad cognitive decline. The last 2 days she has rung me in the middle of the day, crying, saying she's so lonely. She repeats herself constantly. Today she rang me saying she had fallen over, thought she had been unconscious but couldn't hear my to answer my questions on how she is. (This is not only worrying big it also is disruptive. I'm working. I miss meetings)
She can't hear the doorbell or the phone, although my dad has keys she usually seems to.leave her keys in the lock.inside so we can't unlock the door anyway.
I called my MIL to ask her to go round with keys to check on her. She did manage to get in (this time) and said she didn't seem injured but just kept repeating the same thing about calling the hairdressers??
Her house is pretty dirty too because she refuses cleaners and cant see the dirt.
The thing is she goes absolutely crazy if we say she needs ANY help. Literally screaming at everyone.
Even specsavers have said they won't see her anymore unless she has a chaperone because she is abusive.
WTH can we do?
My dad goes round a couple of times a week but we can't just turn up because we can't get in.
I go round a bit but really only if we can go out in her garden because I have young kids and her house is NOT a suitable.place for them to be.
Any advice would be really gratefully received. She is causing so much stress for everyone.
Thanks

User. Yes, lots of old people hate the words care home. I have a friend whose Mum made her promise she would never put her in one. It’s a real fear for older people.

if they have capacity and choose not to go into residential care then that is their choice. part of the mental capacity act enshrines in law the right of adults with capacity to make choices that may be adjudged by others to be bad ones. it goes further than that....if someone lacks the capacity to make a decision and that decision must be made by someone else, then they must base that decision on what the person has previously demonstrated that they would choose and not what THEY think is in the person's best interests. Before I retired, I used to work with people with Alzheimers, stroke and head injury. One of my hardest jobs was making clear to other care staff and relatives that they couldn't insist that people ate a healthy diet, accepted flu vaccination, stopped buying scratch cards and so on if their behavior prior to injury/illness had demonstrated otherwise. if the choice in question affects public health or puts others at risk...eg doing things that might set the house on fire, feeding vermin and so on, then the council may be able to intervene officially.
You may disagree with me on moral grounds but in the UK legally thats the story.

I think it's a great idea.

Thanks @user143677433 that is a good way of talking to her. I don't suppose she'd fall for it tbh but then she probably wouldn't fall for the 'hotel' either so we might as well not lie to her.
And yes it's totally her preconceived idea of what a '"care home" is that's convinced her not to.even entertain the idea. I think she imagines a load of dead eyed elderly people sat in what looks like a hospital waiting room with the telly on too loud.
This place literally couldn't be less like that. She would have her own space. She could make friends and have a social life, she would be SAFE.

I can't make a professional judgement as I am not longer practicing but it seems to me that you are giving her true information in a way that she can understand. Your Dad will be having a holiday even though he's not going away. My question would be who will fund this if you don't have POA? She'd need to understand that she will be paying for this holiday if that is your plan....also your dad would have to actually BE on holiday and not visit while she is there.

No OP, you are not being unkind. You feel helpless. Seeing one of the people you love most in the world decline like this is heartbreaking, frustrating and sad. My gran is 90, nowhere near as bad as yours sounds, but is stubborn as an ox too. She is far from needing a home, but there are things she does need, and the refusal to accept help and being rude can be a big problem, and it is putting a huge strain on my mum who out of 4 children is the only one doing any care for her. I totally understand you and while I don't have the answer, I send you and your gran support.

If your mum is lonely during the day, would she consider attending a day centre for now? It would provide her with company, hot meals and activities during the day. Many are in the same premises as retirement communities/care homes, so they can ease the transition.

A lot of extra care and independent living places run socials, bingo nights and day centers which welcome outsiders. The women in our place loved outsiders coming in. They were always swarmed with new friends within seconds.

It would be worth phoning the one you have an eye and asking if they have anything your gran could attend during the day.

Once she gets familiar with it and meets people there it will become less frightening for her.

What you describe about her attitude is very common and is usually an early symptom of demetia. Dementia strips a person of everything they are. It's a very cruel disease.

She is a 96 year old adult, not a two year old having a tantrum. Gran is not being selfish. She is old, her mental and physical faculties are seriously diminished. It's undoubtedly hard for the OP and her family, and there are certainly difficult decisions that must be made. But your attitude is unnecessarily cruel. God forbid you might live long enough to be a burden on others. Nobody wants to be that person. And when you get to that age, the sad fact is that you won't know you are that person. Sometimes we have to step up and make hard decisions for our loved ones. That doesn't make them selfish or self-centred. Perhaps when and if you get to 96 years old you'll be the bright spark you were at 20. Most people aren't, but they have given a life time of work, sorry and love to others. God forbid that when life wears us out that everyone thinks we are nothing more than selfish.

@godmum56 thanks. IF we could get her to agree to go she would be happy to agree to pay I think. She doesn't really mind spending money as far as I can tell. Also she probably wouldn't actually ask the cost as such. She'd likely just give my dad her credit card and ask him to sort it out for her.

Wow thanks @Jalisco. Way to make me feel better about it all. What do.you suggest we do then? Preferably without the guilt tripping.

I think it's important to remember how you'd feel if someone was telling you that you had to move out of the home you live into a care home right now. I wouldn't like it at all and would likely resist. My job involves visiting care homes and of course they're necessary and done are lovely but they're not home.

I agree that you need to speak to adult social care- they can perform a capacity assessment to see if she has the capacity to consent to stay home and then if she doesn't to work with family to decide what is in her best interest. Her past wishes will be taken into account vs current wishes, risks etc.

I think this is wrong. Very wrong.
She'd rather die than go into a home. I am in my 20s, but having worked in one and coming from a family of carers, I bloody well feel the same.
She is 96 years old, it wouldn't be unexpected if she died as I type this post. Let her live the rest of her life at home. Yes, she might fall and die. But I'd rather fall and die than go into a home. I do hope my grandchildren one day just don't decide my wishes don't matter, and put me in a situation I don't want to be in because that's what they think is for the best.
Respect her wishes. She is going to die fairly soon, she would like to die at home, let her die at home.

Hold on all the smug people telling us what to do having never had to deal with a needy older person who will almost always put their needs and wants first. It’s not necessarily their fault but it still happens and it’s not fair and right on the people that are trying to work with the relative. It literally sucks the life out of you for years and years.

That's all well and good @ChilleyCheesecake but frankly if we did then what? We'd likely be considered negligent if she was just left to.slowly die on the bathroom floor because nobody realised she had fallen and couldn't get up BECAUSE SHE CANT HEAR TO ANSWER THE PHONE.
Also I really couldn't live with myself it that were to happen to her.
Also having worked in a care home is very different to having to be responsible for someone around the clock all the time.
It's like the difference between working in a nursery and having an actual baby. You don't get to just go home at yhe end of your shift.
And what about my dad? Why does he not get to live the life he wants. He's 72 himself. Why does her life and happiness matter more than his?

I went round many care homes/retirement villages/assisted living looking for my relative - most were lovely (this is the higher end) and I’d be happy to go to any of them. I’ve decided that’s what I will do when the time comes (I don’t have kids.) Some are like 5* hotels. Beautiful, well kept, lovely staff. Really lovely places.

OP’s relative is quite well off - certainly well off enough to go to any of the homes I looked at.

Chilley is talking complete nonsense. Imagine if you just left them to it? They have a fall and are literally lying there unable to call for help. Relative refuses to wear care pendant. Its an accident waiting to happen but as long as they die at home that is ok with Chilley??

Even though I’m only in my 40s I’ve already told my teenage kids what type of care home /assisted living facilities I would and wouldn’t like. I could never be so selfish as to expect them to turn their lives upside down trying to care for me and worry about me.

Sounds like they already have at least 1 PoA, but if not, you’ve no idea what she will agree to.

CoP is not that expensive, afaik it’s £400 to apply and £500 if the case needs to be heard, then an annual fee if the deputy continues (you can just use it to make a one off decision p).

It takes on average 1 year once the application is in for COP.

That is an awfully long time for the family to carry on like this.

User. You say that now… do you think all of the older people behaving like this ever saw themselves behaving like a mad women?

I agree, which is why it’s much more sensible to have PoA in place. (It takes 12 weeks just to get PoA.)

As it turns out OP has PoA for health - she should be able to get her GM’s capacity assessed.

If GM doesn’t have capacity OP has the power to make the decision that she would be safer in care. (Many places offer a combination of care levels - independent living, assisted living and nursing care).

The problem will be if no-one has has financial PoA they have no power to sell her house to pay for care.

Who would consider you negligent?
I do understand and empathise with your Dad's feelings. My own mother wouldn't leave her home to go into residential care. My sibs and I did what we could but none of us live close and all of us had other responsibilities as well as jobs. We sorted out the care that she would accept, set up the stuff that she would agree to and lived in a state of constant worry until her heart finally failed. A stranger looking at how she lived would have thought it appalling but it was her choice. its really easy for folk to judge capacity by whether it agrees with the choices that they would make in the same circumstances, or, even worse, to judge on whether those choices are for some mythical "best"

Now if you had bothered to read my post or the one that I was responding to, you would have seen that I was agreeing with you, but not thinking her selfish or nasty as the poster I quoted suggested. But your response makes me now wonder what kind of person you actually are. Try reading what I said again instead of making it all about you.

I don’t really understand what your question is there.

I am saying it is important when you are younger to have conversations with your family to ensure you don’t become a burden to them. You are saying … what? That people shouldn’t have these conversations?