Phoning the police repeatedly, what do we go now?

[Caffeineislife]

So after months and months of phoning everyone she knows telling them about how she is abandoned and lonely and has no heat/ water/ food GMIL has started to phone the police in distress. This has happened 3 times so far this week (Monday, Weds and early today). She has had a visit from social care who did welfare check on Wednesday.

MIL was there sorting out the aftermath of another distress episode when they arrived, it was an "unplanned - not arranged with MIL" visit and MIL did not take it well. DH and DBIL feel that MIL needs to speak with the social worker who came as the level of support GMIL needs in the last couple of months is larger than what we as a family can realistically manage. However many of social care staff (office based ones) seem to be on leave for Xmas. DH sent an email and got an out of office reply with an emergency contact number.

GMIL mentioned at the weekend (before the ringing the police behaviour began) that she thinks she would like to go into a home, after years of refusal. However, with her complex health needs, plus dementia we think she is likely to need a nursing home. What is the protocol this close to Christmas? We want to visit some homes and explore options but with Xmas and new year, the homes we have spoken too are all saying after new year now. If she continues the phoning of the police will she get an emergency placement?

Not because they're in a care home, but because they are ill!! Dementia is increasingly becalming the most common cause of death in elderly people, most people in care homes have dementia. QED.

For those statistics to be anything other than totally meaningless they need to compare people at the same stage of the same condition and at the same age.

they have actually worked out that people at age 65-69 have a longer life expectancy than 90 year olds. I mean, someone got paid to point that out.

This is why maths teaching needs to be better.

The figures are comparing life expectancy of elderly well enough to live at home with elderly whose care needs are so great that they can no longer live at home. Unsurprisingly the second group have lower life expectancy.

But if you took someone from the first group and put them in a care home, they wouldn’t suddenly become as frail as the second group

My mum went through a phase of this. Phoning either the police or the ambulance service when the carers (in her extra care facility, so not like a nursing home) didn't answer her call button fast enough.

Now they have a note on her number to call me or my sibling when she rings them. We then establish whether there's actually a real problem or it's just her being her (no dementia, just volatile).

I’ve read on an Alzheimer’s life expectancy study that life expectancy for some patients increased when they were in a home compared to being cared for by relatives. This was largely due to carer burn out, especially in cases where there is just one person taking the burden and less immediate access to GPs/ Social Services/Hospitals.

My Mil got like this. She was admitted to hospital by the District Nurse, who decided she was no longer safe at home.

I am late to this thread but 2nd reply was also my initial thought - UTI
They can come on suddenly and with dementia it is sometimes hard to recognise until the person is behaving completely out of there normal self
I'd be skipping the nursing home etc for now and focus on an OOH drs app to test for infection. And I'd have her stay with you or family until she's better

Thanks all for your helpful replies. Sorry it has been so long on the update, me and DH have been down since Boxing day with chest infections. It's been a tough week, BIL and SIL are also ill, plus all the children off school too so MIL has been doing a lot of the care. MIL is also caring for her own elderly parents one who has had a fall last week and the other who is booked in for cataract op in a couple of weeks.

MIL took her to the emergency treatment centre and asked to test for UTI and also because MIL discovered she has scratched at her ankle until it has bled and has become infected. It now needs daily dressing and she is on antibiotics for the infection. GMIL has no idea she has done it.

We've found it's mainly night time with the phoning and is happening pretty much every night now. She has started keeping very strange hours and sleeping in the day. She's also really confused by everyone at the moment. She sat at boxing day tea asking where she was and who everyone was -also refused to eat anything as "John" wasn't there and we must wait for him to come back before we eat. She kept asking for her husband "John" who sadly died 15 years ago and couldn't understand why he wasn't there. All she kept saying was "Where's John? He doesn't normally leave me with strangers". "Did John say where he was going?" And "I'm sorry, I've forgotten who you all are, I'm sure John told me your names before he left".

She doesn't have a care package as she refuses carers and won't let them in, she has been judged as having full capacity. She's also a master at presenting as fully capable when any assessment is done. We are waiting until after the new year and then exploring options, she will be self funding. We've contacted one home that has space and we are visiting next week. She keeps asking to go in a home in her lucid moments.

I would ask for the capacity assessment to be redone. And email all your concerns around her levels of confusion etc. So these can be included into the assessment. She sounds like she is escalating quite quickly.

Also, we were not wanting to jump the queue re placement. The worry was that she would be placed as an emergency wherever there was space and without warning/ visiting. It was the impression MIL was given at the welfare check. We intended to keep her at home over Xmas and New year and muddle through.

This has been on the cards a while, DH and BIL have been pushing for professional care for months as she has so many complex health needs (requiring 3 weekly hospital visits and regular medication reviews) and long standing MH needs (that require 3 monthly monitoring at psyc ward). Then add the dementia in too and there is a perfect storm. Dh, me and BIL and SIL stepped in as MIL was getting really burnt out with also caring for her own aging parents who since COVID have become very frail and needing frequent appointments for thier health needs whilst giving up driving due to cataracts and generally old age dangerous driving.

GMIL is FILs mum. FIL is disabled and is unable to care for his mum but is reluctant ( and been a fly in her ear) to get carers or a home due to the loss of his inheritance and has instead pushed all the caring onto MIL.

The worry was that she would be placed as an emergency wherever there was space and without warning/ visiting

This is what happened with my MIL after she'd been assessed at the hospital after the police took her in.
But at that point it's not a permanent place. It's called a respite stay and it's paid for by SS initially, whatever your MIL's eventual funding situation. And it buys you time to find somewhere permanent for her. I'd have to check the duration of the initial placement, but from memory I think it's around a month.

As it turns out, the place where she was admitted for the respite period (a council run dementia home) was wonderful, so she remained there. We couldn't have been happier with her care

Who decided she has fully capacity? And full capacity in what?

Main issues are she has an active infection, hence the antibiotics and secondly she may be able to decide what clothes to wear but not her complex health needs? Look into capacity more and how it is assessed and by whom. I suspect the correct procedures haven't been followed.

If you are going down the care home route you may find it difficult to find one that accepts / is suitable for her cognitive needs without a diagnosis. Be wary that you don't find a lovely one which she then gets evicted from as they cannot manage her.

See about getting an assessment again and keep your FIL away from her when by himself if he is scaring her by manipulating her because of his inheritance, what disgraceful behaviour on his part. Your Mum needs to see about careers for her parents as well.

As others have said it sounds like she needs reassessed? Has she got a formal dementia diagnosis? It does seem like a big leap to go straight to a care home but on the other hand depending where you are in the country you could be waiting months and months for a care package, where I am it’s currently 18months-2 years before people are getting packages in place

carers for her parents.

If she's good at masking (I get it, my grandad was too. I knew he had dementia a good year before the gp agreed to actually test him for it. By the time he was actually diagnosed he was already moderate to severe vascular dementia) make sure you have a day to a page (or two pages a day) diary or an a4 notebook that you date for each entry and write in it every single day. Tell everyone involved in her care that its there and get them to do it too.

We even used it to pass messages for each other regarding grandads care (towards the end of being at home he got allowed 3 care calls of 15m a day with the morning one being half an hour so mum and I were able to have an extra half hours sleep as we were there 13/14 hour days otherwise and often we back in the early hours.) so the morning carer would tell us if he'd had breakfast/taken meds/anything else of note.

It was used as evidence that he (and we) could no longer cope at home when he lost the use of his legs and the passage downstairs and his doors were too narrow to get a wheelchair down even if he had been able to propel himself in it (but his social worker still made us take him home to prove it during an emergency admission to a care home 🤦)

We also had audio recordings to show how he acted when it was just mum and I with him rather than other officials/people who he would actively out a front on and mask his true self that went towards it too because they simply couldn't believe it was the same man.

Going forward or for anyone else arranging breaks with friends or family, agree that whoever does the groundwork, booking, collecting payments gets to choose their room first. If anyone complains let them take responsibility for the break, it would save bad feeling re who gets the best room.

When my relative had an infection on top of dementia it made them delirious. All this needs to be looked at as a whole. You have my sympathy it’s so hard when relatives need help they are not willing to accept.