My mum is mid-80s and after a long stay in hospital last year she moved into a care home to be with my dad who was already there. Unfortunately he died a week later, but she's stayed there since. I live four hours' drive away but my brother is near to her.
She doesn't have any mental health issues but is lonely and pretty demanding, expecting everything to be exactly the way she likes it. She is limited in mobility but doesn't accept it, thinking we can take her out for walks and things, she can walk a bit around the home itself slowly with a walker but I wouldn't be confident to take her out in the street, she won't use a wheelchair.
A lot of the other residents are older and some have dementia and she hates being around them, frankly she thinks they are beneath her. So she's unhappy there but when she lived in her flat before her illness she couldn't really manage, found it difficult to even heat up a ready meal and hated being on her own. She couldn't really cope with running the home and would expect my brother to go round immediately for any minor matter that in her mind was a crisis (eg lightbulb blown) and made a massive fuss if he went on holiday or even out for a meal because he wouldn't be available to support her. She can wash and dress herself.
We get daily messages (she won't telephone) in-between visits saying how unhappy she is, and this conversation dominates every visit, but we can't see any alternative arrangement. She can't afford a live-in, and she would expect one to be on duty all hours, be of the same faith as her, which they won't be, and keep to her dietary requirements themselves. She also refuses to prepare the spare bedroom properly for a live-in to live there.
It would be impossible to have her live with us, neither of us have homes that are suitable (no spare bedroom or ground floor bathroom and I have a young family) and we know she'd be very demanding, insist on someone being there all the time and making the food that she likes. The latest is she says she wants to advertise for a family to live with "as her own have abandoned her".
She did go to see a self-contained flat in a care home with 24 hour call buttons and a restaurant but said it was too far to walk to the restaurant, even with a walker, and she'd have to use a lift which she's frightened to do, the other people in the communal lounge weren't friendly enough (she won't start a conversation, expects others to). Can't imagine her in a sheltered flat without a restaurant because she probably wouldn't eat properly like she didn't before, and she wouldn't see anyone.
We're out of ideas. Can anyone help?