Mixed dementia, going out and best source of help?

[Brombat]

Mil needs to go to the hospital for an appointment.

She has been diagnosed with mixed dementia and has lost capacity. She is very resistant to leaving the house and hasn't for many months. She is getting increasingly anxious and wants to go home to her mum.

Currently contemplating asking the CMHT for help. The GP is very aware of her situation and it needed the CMHT to diagnose her due to her history of refusing medical help.

Thoughts welcome, especially if you have direct experience of trying to over come refusal to get medical treatment.

I'm sorry @Brombat I don't quite follow although that's probably me rather than what you've written.

What has the GO prescribed for her anxiety? What level of help is she currently receiving? Is she having Carers 4 times a day?

Is the medical appointment with CMHT

Nothing prescribed at the moment. No real care other than FiL, who has been ignoring the anxiety.

Don't worry, it's very confusing. She's refused any care for so long now, the usual suggestions won't really work. It's only become a problem now as her mobility is decreasing very quickly and she had a fall last week.

Have you tried patient transport there very experienced. I use them all the time for appointments.

What's the appointment for? Can they get it done any other way - hospital at home service or similar? Video call?

Is the hospital department where she has her appointment aware of her situation ? It sounds as if she would benefit from a dementia specialist carer/nurse/advocate to accompany her or at least provide some additional support. My mum had mixed dementia and although she was resistant for a long while to support at home, she was OK with attending things and engaging with health professionals outside of the house, although I always went with her. Although your ILs may be resistant to this, at some point they will need some outside help within the home .

In terms of health professionals we found the staff attached to what we called the 'memory clinic' (which may have been part of wider mental health team) and the community OT team attached to that to be very helpful.

It's a scan, so she needs to go in. We think they are but we didn't organise the appt and it's instead of A & E, so that's good.

She isn't under the care of the memory clinic as they refused her referral, so CMHT instead.

Really good idea about the specialist nurse. The one thing we do need to do is go back to the dementia advisor and get more help as things have moved on.

We've just had a long chat with Fil and thrashed a few things out, once I'd sorted my thoughts out, it always helps to post. :-)

One way of introducing a carer is to employ someone local and introduce them as a friend. So you go around with them the first couple of times and have a cuppa together so your DPs get to meet them. Then the Carer can start to maybe go each day and get lunch, give medications, wash up, that kind of thing.

Move had more success introducing Carers when we haven't called them carers. So the term hone help might be more acceptable.

We've employed a cleaner for my DA that we know can take on more if the time ever arrives.

@PolaroidPrincess I agree about using the term 'home help' for many it has less connotations of being frail

Sorry about the typos. I did indeed mean Home Help

We've done that. It's moving them from sitting having a cup of tea to doing actual caring stuff.

It's quite a formal environment. Even I would hesitate to go make a cup of tea or something. All a bit difficult but things need to change.

I'm going to get on to the appropriate agencies tomorrow.