My mother needs a nursing home.

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I strongly suspect something is happening with my mother but it's not presenting with forgetfullness. It's behavioural and mood stuff with her. There's types of dementia that doesn't affect memory until the later stages and it's behavioural based. A lot of people even GPs they are looking for a testbook style of forgetfulness. My mother isn't behaving well and I am finding it hard to get a diagnosis. After this morning's antics, I don't care what she has. A diagnosis would be great but I am not getting it. She needs a nursing home. She absolutely needs a nursing home after what she did today in the kitchen.

But how do I get her into one?

You could try getting Social Services adult social care department to assess her if she's a danger to herself.

Where/ who does she live with? You don't need a diagnosis to go into a nursing home. But she would need to agree to, or be deemed to not have capacity to make the decision, or be deemed not able to stay where she currently is by social services. There is a high bar for the latter two, but it depends on her situation and behaviour.

You have my sympathies, my Mum is in a dementia care home via the adult social care route and I spent two hours today trying to help her identify a bird in the distance that looked very like a pole... it was a telephone pole but at least a good distraction from trying to avoid explaining that her husband, parents and siblings are all dead so that's why they don't visit.

Do you have LPOA?

Forgetfulness isn't very obvious to me. It looks to me as if she is forgetting how to behave.

You just phone around local nursing homes and ask if they have any vacancies.

There’s usually a trial period.

Would your mother agree to going to a nursing home? It’s not unheard off for people to develop mental health issues when they’re elderly.

My Mum had personality changes initially, became very sexualised, no filters marching up peoples drives to look in their windows.

Weirdly 20 years later she's changed again and is actually a nice person in her 90's which I struggle with after the toxicity of her original pre dementia personality.

How long has her behaviour been strange/difficult? Could she have a UTI?

She had a UTI two weeks ago. It took me a week to get her to go to the doctor. She did take her medicine. I doubt it's UTI again unless if it never cleared up. I don't know.

You can't just put someone in a care home if they don't want to go and the GP won't diagnose- as the individual may be assessed to still have capacity.

OP we put my grandmother in dementia care home via adult social care route as GP would also not give formal diagnosis because when she saw the doctor she was 'having a good day' and as you say they are looking for forgetfulness. What also helped us was getting my grandmother to agree to 2 weeks respite care in a home and then once she was in they noticed how unwell she was and put her on a DOLS and wouldn't allow her back home without sufficient care in place.

Sometimes getting lots of eyes clapped on them from different services can help. Also having lasting power of attorney for both finance and healthcare is a good start, but might be too late in your mother's case to start application... Good luck with it all.

The UTI may still be there - I’d see if you can get another test done or ask her GP to extend the antibiotics.

If you dont have POA and even if you do and they dont want to go then moving into a nursing home isnt going to happen. My late DM was going downhill rapidly but she put on a 'performance' everytime she saw someone offical.

Loved speaking to the paramedics who came round numerous times and showed off when they were speaking to her (and trashed me and my bossiness!).

One very good paramedic took me out of the room and said she knew what Mum was doing and told me they saw it again and again and that the bar for no capacity is very high.

What I would also watch for because you are clearly at the end of your tether is the parent tellling people out of your hearing that you are fine doing her shopping, cleaning etc and that they dont need any further help.

The only times my mum has behaved oddly has been after a UTI and after an operation. It might be well worth speaking to her doctor about this.

I feel for you - it sounds as though you are having to shoulder this burden. Do you have any support?

No care home will take your mother if she does not agree to go and has not been officially assessed as lacking capacity to make her own decisions. You can't just 'put someone in a home'.

There is also a difference between a nursing home and a care home - nursing homes are for people who are so frail and unwell that they need constant medical support to hand. It doesn't sound like your mother falls into that category.

I have seen your other posts in the past couple of weeks, and I suspect you may have posted before that under a different name, as the circumstances and style of posting are similar. You are obviously very upset and frustrated by your mother's behaviour, particularly as by the sound of it you are living with her.

However, there is no quick and easy way to deal with this. You have to report concerns to the GP and social services, make sure that all possible medical explanations for behavioural changes have been explored and treated if necessary (eg the UTI could well still be an issue after a couple of weeks), and if your mother will not cooperate with treatment, tell the GP and social services that, which could trigger an assessment of her capacity and her needs.

But going from living independently with no outside care to going into a care home is not something that happens instantly. Also, do you and/or your mother have the private funds to pay for a care home?

This

If you are all living together in a house then it gets complicated. Care homes are circa £1200 PER WEEK. How are you going to fund this? If she has ownership of a house that will be earmarked and you cannot just change ownership into another name..

My Father lived for nearly 4 years in a care home and it took almost 1/4 of his overall estate. He was wealthy too.

It's common to have delirium after a UTI.

You can fund care home fee's by purchasing an annuity.

For example £135,000 pays £2k a month for mum, the remaining £2k is funded by mums pensions

The problem is she doesn't see this level of crazy in herself. It's impossible to get her to the doctor and if was to get a doctor's home visit she would fight that and if I was to call an ambulance she would fight that too.

I got my hair done at the weekend and all she could do was laugh and say 'if you like it's and it was so condensing. But she used the opportunity to bitch about my sister in law and her hair who's not even in her face even lives in a different country. She is hyper focused on hate against her for no apparant reason but she made excuses.

She really isnt behaving right.

Her UTI could be persisting.
Do remember it's a frightening thing for someone experiencing these changes in personality. My dad was terrified a lot of the time, despite gentle care at home.

I don't have POA.

I never knew what it was until 2 years ago. Anytime I tried to talk my mother around POA well, she was always apathetic with anything legal and the responses is not now....after this other thing...or a very flat - 'oh right'. I get the sense that she doesn't have the comprehension for it. She can do a lot of daily living tasks (but I think a lot of it is etched in her long term memory and it's out of routine). I think if she was to be taken out of her routine she will blow up.

DB was found wandering at night and taken to his home by police - this meant things moved v fast .
If it’s just words I don’t think it’s enough.
Does she leave the cooker on, for example?

She's not leaving the cooker on, no.

It's not so much worse from her either. It's behavioural stuff like taking and stealing from me. Snooping. Eavesdropping. There's other stuff too. The washing machine is failing. There's issues. I offered to get a repair man or to buy a new one and she refused both options. Today she pulled it out from its location in the wall and dragged it across the kitchen floor trailing pipes where she started to get screwdrivers at it. She hadn't a clue what she was doing. She never had any DIY or mechanical skills. She then decided to see if it will work across the room and she's now decided the new placement is the perfect place for it completely disrupting flow around the kitchen. She shouted at me over curtains on Sunday. Her planning and organising skills is waning. Her comprehension is waning.

She's leaving the hot water on and whenever I feel the tank it feels as if there's enough hot water for an army to take showers. I would be worried if there's an explosion at some point. I remember one morning she put on the water to heat it up. An hour later it was still on so I turned it off and that angered her. She then started arguing with me that she needs it on because she will be washing her hair later. Now I know whenever she washes her hair, she does it in the evening time about 5 or 6. Never day time. Her arguement and resisted t was at 10.30 in the morning and her plan was to heat it up all day long. When there's no need for that.