Think a care home is becoming inevitable for my DM

[nonevernotever]

Going to be a long one afraid. She'll be 89 next month. She was always very fit and healthy until the first lockdown when she had a stroke that left her with a bit of weakness on her left side, lack of motivation/energy and she was diagnosed with mixed dementia a couple of years ago. She lives alone with carers visiting four times a day (only three times a day until her last hospital stay) to make food, help her take her medication and put her support stockings on and so on. She's just had a four week stay in hospital with a nasty bout of diverticulitis but has lost so much muscle mass and motivation that she's really wobbly even with a Zimmer . She can still shower herself but needs support to get there and is really struggling to dress/undress too. She's had an accident every day since she came home because she is struggling to get up from her chair without help. She fell down the stairs last weekend too. She won't let her carers help her shower or get dressed but wants me to help her the whole time. I'm currently spending an hour with her every morning getting her up, coming back mid afternoon to make sure she gets to the loo and then coming back to help her into her pyjamas. My sister is also more than pulling her weight and is the main person having to come down in the night if anything shows on the cameras, but we're both at the end of our tether and this clearly isn't sustainable.(Just in the last 7 weeks we've had three trips to a and e in an ambulance in addition to mum's hospital stay). We spoke to mum today about a care home on the grounds that we're not sure we will be able to keep her safe at home much longer (for example she wears a fall detector but when she fell down the stairs last week it didn't go off because she didn't fall from a height and she didn't think to press it, just lay in a crumpled heap on the stairs waiting for one of us to get there) and we 'd like her to still be able to enjoy the activities in the nursing home . She agreed immediately, but has looked so sad ever since that were feeling really guilty now, even though we know it's probably the solution. She has enough to fund 6-7 years in the good local home that she previously said was the one she wanted to go into if it came to it (she used to visit others in care homes all over our city, so knew most of them well) though it isn't on the council list. I don't even know what I'm looking for from this post. A hand hold? Validation? Or just practical advice on how to go about making the arrangements and helping mum to settle in and be happy when it will mean shedding most of her possessions, losing more independence and her cats having to come and live with us.

She does, but I thought attendance allowance stopped when you moved into a care home?

If you are self funding, which you are, you don’t need social services or even GP involvement at this stage as this is a private arrangement. Unless the home you pick is very close to her current house she will likely move to the GP that covers the home.

Once we had found a place the home sent out an assessor the next day. I think mainly to make sure we hadn’t been minimising his care needs. DF was then transported in the day after that.

unless there is an existing financial advisor or her finances are particularly complex you don’t necessarily need one.

As a self funder you can normally continue to get Attendance Allowance whilst in a home. DF was already getting at the higher level.

If your DM is self funding then it is between you/her and the care home. Nobody else gets a say in it.

Give them a call and arrange a visit. Obviously all depends on whether they have space. The care home will want to assess your DM's needs. They may want to speak with her GP.

With my DM, the hospital just wanted her gone. We could have been moving her into a skip, I don't think they would have cared so long as she was off their books.

The care home may prefer/insist that residents use a specific GP.

No, my DM's claim for attendance allowance was approved a couple of weeks ago, since she moved into her care home.

It isn't huge, around £110 per week at top rate.

Head on over to Cockroach Cafe, judgment free forum and so much good advice from people going through this. It’s been invaluable to me.

To add. It sounds like the only next step to keep her home is increase in care at home up to live in care. It also sounds like she might need to have an adapted bathroom or stair lift which I suspect would be needed for a live in carer to manage. That’s £10k as a ball park. You might buy her a bit more time but might not.
we went from short visits from local authority care via a hospital admission to privately funded live in care (upwards of £1100 per week) through an excelled nationwide agency.
Don’t feel any guilt at all, at the moment it sounds like your mum has capacity so this is all irrelevant if she won’t agree to it. Ensure POA etc all in place while she has capacity. We don’t and it makes life incredibly difficult and only manageable as I have access to her bank account as an extra signatory.

Thanks again - so much helpful advice here.

I think mum probably does have capacity still most of the time, but she sorted out a will and a power of attorney years ago.

She has an existing financial advisor and wants to consult him so that's why that element. I do want to make sure also that we know the best way to manage her money, particularly when the house is sold so that if possible she can maximise how long it will last her .

We are very lucky in so many ways - she hasn't disagreed with us about the move, and she brought it up herself this evening. I've been dropping it into every conversation since Saturday because she doesn't really remember anything, but this evening she asked me if I'd managed to book an appointment with her advisor yet. and the care home she likes is five minutes from her house and only about ten for my sister and I.

Just as a small warning, do not be surprised if you see a certain amount of decline in your DM when she goes into a care home. The change of environment, change of the people around her will remove a lot of her coping strategies. Even if she takes a number of her own possessions with her they will be in different places, lighting will be different etc.

Some things we have found useful for DM (in no particular order):

• dementia clock
• stick ins labels - I label everything
• book ends if there isnt a bookcase
• clothes which can withstand the laundry (clothes are laundered at 60 degrees at DM's home)
• vases
• an electric fan
• soft furnishings to personalise the room

I wouldn't do this. Moving will take a huge toll, and you would potentially have to move her AGAIN in a year or so, to a proper nursing home.

When my Mum died my Dad said he wanted to move to a retirement village. He was 78 at the time. We made this happen for him. It was quite horrendous, as we had to empty his house of 40 years worth of "stuff". Anyway, he was good there for a while, but now, at 83, he is immobile and sometimes incontinent, so it looks like we may have to move him again to a proper nursing home. Gah!