82 year old grandmother with health issues has booked a holiday with her friend who has suspected dementia to spain

[LovingLurker]

My lovely grandmother who I am very close to has booked a holiday to Spain with her friend who lives next door and has been her best friend for many years. Her friend is seeing people in her home at night that are not there and forgetting things. Her son her told the doctors and she is has an appointment she thinks is for. A check up but is try and start the process of seeing if she has dementia or what’s wrong with her,My grandmother has several health issues mobility issues and a really bad leg ulcer that won’t heal, we have taken her abroad with us and take her on holiday where we are there to support, something always goes wrong , and every time she forgets some medication, such as forgetting insulin while and only realising on a cruise ship. She is on heavy medication such as a high dose of morphine too. We really don’t feel this trip is a good idea , but they paid deposit and are admiment in going despite all this. I am sure they won’t get any form of mobile to work either as they both struggle.
she said she will ask doctor if she is okay to go ? Do I call doctor with my concerns, do I just let them go ? I will also be 39 weeks pregnant and my mother her daughter is here supporting us with my toddler if I go into labour , I’m so concerned if something goes wrong we won’t be in the right set up to help her.

They won't get insurance, I doubt the doctor would declare either of them fit for travel and when they become unwell they will cause extreme distress to op and ndn family who is left to sort it out.

Some people actually like their mums/nans though.

It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. One of my friends went on a multi-generational holiday within Europe as a final andventure after a dementia diagnosis for one grandparent. Both grandparents, both adult children and partners went, plus three primary-aged children. It was somewhere they’d been before, relatively straightforward journey.

She came back distraught. The grandparent with dementia had struggled to cope out of their usual routine and in a strange place. They were distressed and needed at least one adult with them at all times as they started to wander. The four adults tag teamed it, the children were distressed by the distressed grandparent so had to be tagteamed differently, so they ended up running a shift system for most of the week with one adult with the grandparents, one adult with the children, one adult sleeping, one adult doing food shopping/prep.

it wasn’t exactly a relaxing holiday! And that’s with FOUR working age adults present.

Oh heck, OP. No advice but hand hold. My late DF would have done this when he had dementia. It’s giving me vicarious grey hairs for you just thinking about it.

My elderly neighbour had a fall in the Caribbean island. She went by air ambulance
to Miami, stayed in hospital for a month. Luckily her travel insurance covered the 250k it cost.

So OP can't intervene - apart from finding out who she is going with and where she is staying AND then contacting them (when they won't speak to her anyway as she hasn't booked anything) but apart from that has "no right to intervene"

Sadly no.

I wasn't suggesting OP go off covertly and liaise with travel and accommodation providers without consent ( which is the only circumstances such providers wouldn't discuss service provision with family to help facilitate it. ) But it is a damage limitation measure, and one that might make OP feel a little more reassured if that's even possible.

I'm afraid it is a sad legal fact that loving family are allowed to run themselves into the ground saving our nearest and dearest from themselves, but we have no legal or moral right to stand in the way of free will.

@Cornucopia55thats really kind of you to say thank you :)

Make sure they have GHIC too

What a stupid thing to say.

My almost 90 year old mum wanted me to take her on a Caribbean holiday in spite of her lack of mobility, multiple health issues and the fact she cannot organise a chimps tea party let alone a long haul holiday where the chances of her ending up in some overseas hospital are high. I refused and arranged a trip to Eastbourne instead with only a few hours of travel and a hotel and prom she knows and can manage to navigate.

My view is if you cannot organise or sort a trip like this yourself then they cannot expect help when it goes wrong. If your GM is adamant on going with this friend I would not be lifting a finger to help with insurance, travel arrangements, accommodation etc etc.

No one checks if you have insurance though do they? Our neighbours in their mid 80’s but in reasonable health, go on many trips a year including a 3 month cruise but cheerfully admit they don't take out insurance as its too expensive at their age.
I guess its a calculated risk for them, but I’ll feel sorry for their family if something goes wrong at some point.
Hope it doesn’t end in disaster OP!

Why?
You might not give a fuck if your elderly, unwell mum has a medical emergency abroad where you can't help, but lots of people want their relatives to be safe and alive.

Could you ask her to postpone the holiday as you'd like her to be around for the birth of your child. You could say the doctors have said there's a chance the baby could arrive early.

You could then help her postpone the holiday and put the deposit towards something more suitable at a later stage.

I would suggest the neighbour's son remove his mother's passport as it sounds very unsafe for her to leave her home while hallucinating. If she is telling you these things as well when you visit, can you raise a concern for her welfare.

It's so difficult as they are adults but you know that it is unsafe for them to travel without a responsible companion or carer.

If her friend has dementia with confusion and visual hallucinations, then I think a holiday of any kind, and particularly abroad is very likely to trigger a delirium episode. This will be completely untenable for your grandmother who will be traumatised if this happens - as in, it would be horrific and could seriously cast a terrible shadow over her own twilight years. If this happened, her friend would be quite likely to have a sharp deterioration in her cognition from which she never recovers. I honestly think that's quite likely to happen and you probably need to invite your grandmother to think responsibly about what her friend can handle, which sadly probably isn't a holiday anywhere let alone somewhere totally unfamiliar. I wonder if this holiday is some kind of last hurrah, to have something positive to cling to amidst the grief she may be feeling for her best friend. In which case, helping her to understand how terribly risky a holiday would be for her friend, and the very real possibility of making terrible memories instead of good ones - might be a good way of approaching it. I think her friend probably doesn't have the capacity to make a decision about this holiday, honestly. If she doesn't comprehend she has dementia then she doesn't comprehend the very high risk of delirium.

Just to be clear - I think taking someone with dementia on holiday generally is a really bad idea. It's not just the Spain bit but even going with her friend on a UK holiday could backfire terribly.

I would do everything you can to dissuade them OP. The offer of an alternative in the UK is a lovely one. I work for a tour operator and sadly we’ve had to get local care authorities involved in the past when elderly clients have not been ‘ill’ in terms of needing medical care but simply unable to take care of themselves independently. Hotel staff and holiday reps aren’t replacement caters, even if they specialise in travel for older people.

Why are you so nasty? It's clear from my other post that my DM is dead. She carried on having adventures until the last year of her life and it would not have been loving to try to stop her.

Apologies, I did indeed mean the work family members often have to do when liaising with insurance companies. I spent hours on the phone discussing options with the insurance company, the holiday company, airlines, funeral directors, medics, French officials and even the British Embassy who gave mum an emergency loan as she had no French money.

The insurance isn't a legal requirement, it's a sensible one. So no, nobody checks, because it's upto you. They'll check if you're insured if you need medical care though. Or if you need help with anything at all. Lots of times the insurance will cover it but if you've not declared things health-wise- it could not pay out. If they die abroad, the cost of brining the body back could be prohibitive for family and distressing not to be able to do so. Not having insurance is selfish.

Will the insurance for the neighbour be sorted too? An elderly relative of mine died abroad while visiting close friends. The insurance company were excellent and arranged repatriation with a specialist funeral director. Dread to think what it would have been like without their support. It's very unlikely to happen but it would be grim for your nan to have to deal with a possible illness of friend while abroad without insurance.

The only thing I’d insist on being involved in is insurance to make sure she is covered. You’ve said she still has capacity, so if she’s making the decision to go abroad with a friend, she needs to be clear that they are responsible for each other. I think her capacity is in doubt though, if she’s not appreciating the potential issues of travelling with someone who is already showing signs of dementia at home.
She must also know that you’re about to have a baby and can’t drop everything to go and rescue them if something happens.

It’s all fine to go and have an adventure and a good time at 82, but I’d be a bit gutted if she wasn’t giving much of a shit about keeping herself safe and relying on you to sort it out.

Can't you suggest they pay for someone from an agency to accompany them?

BCBird if they won't pay out for proper insurance with all their conditions declared because it's "too expensive", they're not going to pay the 24/7 wages for 4 carers. They wouldn't even pay for one person. It'd have to be 4 because nobody can work 24/7, so need one on/one off each. On top of that they'd have to pay the cost of holiday (hotel, flights etc) for each carer.

OP I'd say there's a very real danger of the friend dying. Dementia to the point she's hallucinating daily (maybe even 24/7 but she's only mentioning it when she sees people in her home because she knows she lives alone). A strange country where she knows nothing and nobody and doesn't speak the language. I can totally image her wandering off the beaten track and dying of dehydration and heatstroke whilst sat by a rock in full sight of a road barely anyone drives down.

I'd be concerned about your nan's leg ulcer too. In a hot country what are her plans against maggots infesting it or it becoming infected? I imagine either of those occurences could lead to disasterous consequences quite quickly.

thank you everyone for your thoughts and advice o this topic . I have managed to convince my Nan to cancel and we will be looking for something in the uk at some point for them but will wait sometime to see what happens with my nans friend once she has seen the doctor ,

But you will be the one picking up the pieces if there is a disaster!