Moving DM to a flat or building a granny annnexe

[Gardencentrevoucher]

DM lives alone, is in early 70s and has been struggling with memory loss for at least 2 years and has been recently diagnosed with Alzheimers. She was managing quite well until my DF died unexpectedly last year and since then I've become her carer.

One major issue which I'm trying to deal with is her house. Its a big 5 bed detached house in a smallish village. There are local shops for groceries and a post office which she thinks is all she needs to live independently but she can't manage the house or the garden. There's no decent bus service and she doesn't drive (which is good but means she's trapped there) Its taken me months to persuade her to allow a gardener. She has got water leaks in the roof and plumbing problems but just ignores them or expects me to arrange tradesmen for her. I live close but in a neighbouring village and she can't get to me on her own. I have a full time job and primary aged children so I can't just drop everything for her. I worry constantly about her getting lost one day while walking to the shops, leaving the gas hob on or tripping and falling down the stairs. She has neighbours but they don't interact much and wouldn't notice if e.g. she fell in the house or back garden or went missing.

I really want her to.move to a flat in our village or for us to build her a granny annex in our garden. With either of these I could cook for her most nights, see her every day and generally support her much more easily than now. She is very reluctant to accept help from anyone at the moment apart from me. Her other relatives all live 100s of miles away.

I'm not sure if there are loads of drawbacks with the options which I haven't thought of but I'd like to be fully prepared for the conversations which I need to start with her in the next few months. What would you do in my situation?

Be careful about building an annexe. Will you still be able to cope when she needs increased care?

The issues with building a granny annexe are that it tends to take a long time to get planning permission and get it built.

Maybe a couple of years, a year if you really
Push it. Old people can deteriorate fast in that time - she only needs to have a fall or a stroke and suddenly she needs full on nursing care and will never be able to use the granny annexe you have spent so much time and effort building.

Also, at some point she may need 24/7 nursing care. At that point you would need a home
Anyway.

So granny annexes are only useful for what can be a very very short space of time, or a medium amount of time.

You're better off getting cleaners and carers where she is.

If you are in the next village, can you all move in with her and rent your place out? Company makes a big difference to dementia patients.

We don't want move into her house as it would mean my kids changing schools and my commute to work would triple, as well as her house layout being unsuitable. We would have no privacy. She wouldn't want to live with us unless it was an annexe where she could have quiet away from us. My kids are noisy, they have regular playdates and sleepovers and she would hate all of that happening at her house.

I think if we could get somewhere in the next 12 months she would benefit for 3-4 years at least maybe longer Both her parents lived to their 90s and her mother lived alone with memory loss/carers visiting until moving into a home aged 92.

Her health is quite good apart from her memory at the moment but she does stuff like leave the vacuum at the top of the stairs to remind herself to use it the next day, creating a huge trip hazard. Or she leaves food on the kitchen counters for 3+ hours to remind herself what she's having for dinner and I'm sure she'll give herself food poisoning one day. I can't be with her for every meal unless she lives closer/with us.

Don't build an annexe. By the time you get planning permission and actually build it she will almost certainly need more care than you can give her. It sounds like she is already at the stage where she needs daytime supervision and more care than you can provide, if you have a job and children to look after.

I would be starting to look at local care homes which might have space when the inevitable crisis hits, but you might be able to find a rented flat in a sheltered development with visiting carers as an interim measure.

There aren't any flats in sheltered accommodation that she can move to, at least not in either her or our village. She would get totally lost on her own in a new location. I think it has to be either

1. stay where she is with carers, but then I'll have to manage everything remotely as the house is far too big for her/falling into disrepair/carers would only come 4x a day for 15-30mins (?) and they couldn't eat with her or stop her getting lost in the village
2. Move her near to me/into a granny annexe
3. Move into a care home but she could easily live another 15-20 years based on her parents ages and at the moment she's not ready to give up her independence (despite the risks) so it seems too soon for a home.

It seems like we're going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place if we can't move her.

Considering her parents' life expectancy - did either of them have dementia?
If not then unfortunately you can't compare. The average life expectancy when diagnosed is 8-10 years.

She is likely to cope better in her own environment for longer - so her house with repairs and then carers. Moving her to a new environment without a lot of support, such as a flat or granny annexe is likely to lead to a significant cognitive decline and just hasten her need for a care home.

You can get carers to go in for longer if you are self funding. We had carers who’d come for two hours morning and evening. You could also organise extra time in advance for appointments. It was generally the same lady so she got insured on the car. It wasn’t cheap though. Over thirty quid per hour, possibly you could find someone independent for a bit less. The carer was lovely, she would do personal care , laundry and housework, she’d even do manicures and hot roller her hair. They’d go for a little drive and have coffee in nice spots.

It cost about £700 a week Mon- Fri. Family did weekends. Even all that just put off going into a care home, a slip, a broken hip, an infection in hospital and went downhill fast. Went for respite care and never went home.

If its affordable you could get a carer ( maybe a self employed one or two so its always the same person ) to come for longer. Take her shopping check her kitchen make sure she’s eaten, keep a general eye on her.Get her one of those alarms to wear if she falls or gets lost. That might help for a while? If she has dementia I’d look into if it’s possible to get a council tax rebate and attendance allowance .There are also clubs for dementia patients with Age concern where we live. Could she enroll in those maybe and a carer take her and pick her up?

Ha I was just writing more or less the same ! Hadn’t seen your message!

Maybe age concern can advise you on safety in the home. Id try and replace the gas hob with something else for her safety and your sanity. Could you close all the rooms off upstairs and make a bedroom for downstairs?

If she is self funding for care, and has sold her house and used some of the proceeds on building an annex, there may come a time when the only savings she has left are those invested in the annex. Social Services may carry out a funding assessment on the basis that those funds are still available to her. Take professional advice before allowing her to put her money into your house.

If she can afford it, live in carer, expensive, seems best solution , could get a money release scheme on her home, tho of course repairs done first.
This would save you lots of hassle, esp as carer would need to drive to help her

We could adapt the.house for downstairs living only by turnijg the dining room into a bedroom but it would only fit a single bed, maybe one of those narrow doubles at best. There's no downstairs bathroom and making one would require knocking through a wall but possible.

Unfortunately DM has a longstanding mistrust of healthcare professionals after a botched minor operation about 25 years ago so getting a live in carer would take a lot of persuasion, but it would be better if we could achieve it. Its taken me 9 months to get her diagnosed and she's still in denial about it. The only person she accepts help from at the moment is me.

You mentioned the option of a flat in your village in your first post. If this is a possibility, I think it is the best idea myself. Beware the insanity that is the fact that you can legally build flats in this country without lifts. Can you get a ground floor flat?

You could still go ahead with getting an annexe designed and apply for planning permission- even if you never build it, it can add to the saleability of your house to have the permission agreed. But I'm with others in thinking that it might never work out in terms of timing.

Our mum wouldn’t hear of a carer but she loved going out with the nice ‘drivers’ who soon became her friends… in fact we are now onto full time care and we always refer to the ladies or just use their names. We never say carer.

Look at the other threads on here about granny annexes. I grew up as a child in one of these set ups and there is no way I would want my child living in this situation.

You very rapidly get to the stage where everything is geared up around the needs of the elderly person - so you can't have family trips out unless they come too (which limits where you can go). You can't go on holiday because then they'll be on their own (obviously respite care could be used but somehow it never seemed to happen). The parent ends up spending so much time running the grandparent to medical appointments, cooking for them and cleaning they're never around for anything else.

My grandparent didn't have dementia
but what if they put your children at risk (leaving gas on, doors open, becoming violent etc).

And if you've used any of their money to build the annexe there is always the possibility of it being viewed as deprivation of assets if they need to go into a home. So you would need to be able to make that money available (eg remortgage or sell up).

In addition to the concerns with building the annexe above, I'd also suggest working on creating a wider support network for her. If it all falls on you and you are ill yourself (even just something temporary like flu), who still stand in? Will your husband be happy to take over her care? My mum refused to have anyone else in the house until it was that or nobody after my dad caught covid and was in bed for a week - now they have carers in twice a day but it took an emergency to force the issue.

Also bear in mind that your children will soon become teenagers, which brings a whole new set of logistics and support needs. Your mum's pull on your time will only get bigger so it's essential that you put things in place to keep your own sanity.

If dementia is involved, an annexe can be fraught with problems. The person will not be able to remember that they should stay in it at certain times, and will very likely be knocking on your door or otherwise waking you up at 2 or 3 am - they usually lose all sense of time/day/night and will be unable to remember any instructions.

There may well come a point where 24 hour care and supervision are urgently needed - when the person just isn’t safe to be left alone at all. (I am speaking from experience - twice over - here.). Which will almost certainly mean a care home. Live-in carers for such cases will very often work out even more expensive, since they need their sleep and time off, so that means 2 or 3 on shifts. (We did look into this for a relative of dh.)

If there’s still enough money to pay CH fees, that’s fine, but if there isn’t, and social services need to be involved, there will be the question of deprivation of assets. In their eyes you will have used your DM’s cash in order to add a valuable extension to your own home, and they can and will require you to repay the money. So it does need very careful thought.

Good luck - I know all too well what a worrying time it can be.

Start engaging with Social Services now, so that when the time comes for their serious input, you will already be in the system.
If you do have some spare cash, pay for carers.
Start looking at care homes now, because it may be needed sooner than you think.
Moving your mother near to you will simply lead to you becoming a 24/7 carer, and pretty much ruining your life.
Also, if your mother didn't have you, she would have to manage and accept proper help, so this maybe the time to start stepping back, so that she realises she needs professional assistance.

Thanks, all very useful points. Staying in her house and getting carers would obviously help her.in the long run, but at the moment she can dress, feed and entertain herself for now. Getting her used to accepting help from new people would be good but easier said than done. My DB tried to stay with her for a week recently and she spent the whole time telling him everything he did was wrong! He won't be rushing back to help out again. Because of my other commitments I do have to say no to DM quite frequently and I worry about the days I'm not there.

Having arers in also still doesn't solve the issues of her house like the leaking bathroom ceiling, the broken toilet flush, or the massive amount of clutter and trip hazards she leaves everywhere. Or would carers help her find tradesmen and the like? I would worry they'd take advantage of her as she's clueless with anything to do with money.

She will have to accept carers or you will have to move nearer to her - or if you remain in limbo with neither, the demands will escalate and you will be there every day anyway doing something - i realise this sounds hard hearted - after all who doesn't want to help an elderly parent - but the whole point is they keep refusing help and demanding increasingly unrealistic solutions from you. I had to smile when you said she only accepts help from you - this is very very very common - having a daughter 'do it all' in the background allows her to go on with the illusion that she is living 'independently' . To be fair to her it is a frightening time and compassion is needed but you must get it across to her that you will help her but not 110% life support her while she refuses 'outside help'

My mum was living alone in rural France until late last year - we forced a move and found her a lovely flat walking distance from the city centre. We were aware she was getting forgetful, but the change of setting has been very challenging for all concerned. She is miserable, unmoored and recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I’d started the process of finding carers when she fell and broke her hip - now about to be discharged to a respite care home as the NHS has made a best interests decision that she is no longer safe to live alone. No idea how this will play out over the coming weeks, but in your circumstances I think I’d try to keep your mum in a familiar setting for as long as feasible with as much care as you can outsource.

Sorry to hear it sounds like you have had a tough time with your DM @Corbu13

Moving would only be an option to move somewhere familiar, which is either to within walking distance of my house, or into an annex of my house. Anywhere else would be too disorienting for sure.

The main motivation for moving DM is the state of the house and the fact its far too big for 1 person. DM is unable to do any maintenance on it or hire tradesmen. I've spent hours this year finding plumbers, gardeners, a roofer, getting the boiler serviced, even going round and reading the bloody gas meter every month. Its time consuming enough doing it all on my own house nevermind 2 houses.