Move Mum over to Europe?

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My Mum is over 80, lives alone in the UK and I live in Europe. I have two teens, one studying in UK and one due to start studying in UK next year. I have a demanding job with travel. Partner lives 2 hours from me in the same country, also has older teens, we plan to move together when they leave. My mum has declined a lot over the winter and is seeming quite confused. I try to visit every 8 weeks for 4-5 days, have sorted GP appointment and referral to memory clinic (referred but not happened yet), Age UK coordinator appointment and day centre lady for my next visit, cleaning service etc. But none of these are actually in place yet. They are all coming round when I visit in 2 weeks time and then can agree it. Since the weather has improved last couple of weeks she seems a bit more with it and brighter. I think also doing things for herself keeps her independent, as long as that's possible. She shops, cooks, washes herself, all to an extent. I would say it's teetering on the brink. Like last time I was there she barely had anything in the food cupboard and clearly hadn't showered for a while. When I'm there I do a deep clean, sort her paperwork, put away laundry, tidy up. I would say she is in a kind of middle stage between being forgetful and getting confused, and being completely not with it any more, it is like a halfway house. She is very relaxed and chilled out, whereas before she was quite controlling. I could move her over to me, she would have healthcare at least covered under the Brexit agreement and I would be nearby. However my hunch is that this would only make sense if she had progressed to a more severe stage of dementia. Or better to move sooner? It is already starting to wear me out with these trips where I feel guilty anyway after going back. But maybe this is just because I haven't got any actual care set up. As she is now she does not need major care but needs more support and I am setting this up in the most logical way I can. Any tips for this?

All I’d say as a veteran of moving a mother in her 80s to an unfamiliar area - I wish we’d left well alone in some ways. The loss of familiar house, neighbours, doctor, shops and shopkeepers, is a huge one. I don’t think my mum was happy again after that. Having said that, it’s rather clear that your mum has perked up hugely with you around. What would she like to do?

Dementia is a progressive disease, does she have the funds to pay for residential care where you live? If you move her and she returns to the uk after a certain period she will not be eligible for care here at first so you need to ensure that there’s provision for worst case scenario. I actually think moving locally to wear she lives into a residential care facility with dementia nursing provision when required would be a better option. Moving to a foreign country is very risky if there’s a language barrier and reciprocal healthcare isn’t for long term care just for holidays usually

Does your mum speak the language of the country you are in? If not then as soon as she arrived she would be totally dependent on you. To settle in, paperwork for bank accounts etc, for social life. Even if she could walk to a supermarket and shops, if everything is both new and confusing AND in a different language it would be stressful for her to go anywhere alone. Your life already sounds busy - if as her dementia progresses you need a carer for her would you be able to find English speaking ones locally?

What would happen if she needed residential care in the future? How does access to that happen for newly arrived residents? Would she self fund that or does your country pay for everyone? Would they be able to communicate with her in English?

Moving will precipitate her decline in an irreversible way.
I know it is not what you wanted to hear but the impact of relocating demented adults has been heavily studied.

Unfortunately, I agree with doctorsleep. If she's already showing signs of congnitive decline a move will make her worse. All those activities helping her stay independent will fall apart in an unfamiliar environment - especially if there's also a language barrier. She won't be able to learn her way to the new shops, and around town, so she'll be stuck indoors unless you accompany her. Less exercise, less stimulation, confusion from nothing being what or where she expects.

Firstly, does she have capacity? Do you have PoA and is it also valid for the country you live in? Secondly, what does she want?

If she has dementia, at some point she will likely need residential care, then nursing care. What is her funding situation? What is the funding situation where you are? Does she have the right to live where you are? In theory, healthcare should be covered by an S1 if she is post SPA, but dementia care is classed as social rather than health care. As an example of costs, where I am in the UK, residential care is £1450 per week and nursing care is £1950 per week.

Moving someone with dementia is hugely traumatic for them, ideally you should try to minimise how often you do it and do it sooner rather than later.

My experience is that if you/she have the financial resources, things will be easier to manage.

Personally, I would be looking for the best local provision with specialist dementia care and an outstanding CQC rating. These facilities are rare and have waiting lists, don't delay, as the decline, when it happens, can be extremely rapid. In my family's case, it was three months.

Having been through ten years of dementia care for my mother, I would say do not move her. She is going to deteriorate considerably and as others have said, moving her away from her local environment, friends, and familiar things will cause further deterioration and she may never settle. It is high risk.

Assuming you have LPA, and she has funds, I would suggest sourcing companion care for her at home. I arranged for my mother to have companion care every morning. So they prompted her to shower, took her to the shops, took her to appointments, cooked her lunch, did the housework, and provided company. When it became necessary they helped to dress and wash her. I used Home Instead who were very good. They also liaised with Occupational Therapy to assess risks like trip and fire hazards.

That worked for 18 months, then it became obvious she needed someone with her 24/7 so I moved her to a care home. Once she was in residential care I knew she was being taken good care of full time.

Thanks for the replies. Yes I think you're right, moving to another country would be a lot and would deprive her of visits, especially since my kids will quite likely initially work in UK after studies. Care home here would cost about 5 k Euro per month and the standard is very high, she does speak the language quite well but I think it would be less 'cosy' than being in the UK. She is eligible for health insurance long term, I checked this. Health system is better in the sense of plenty of hospital provision, nursing care etc. Home nursing care is also good. Medium waits for doc similar to UK, quicker for specialists. And I would then be nearby and on top of things, checking up on them, able to visit several times per week. KIds' dad is here and staying for the foreseeable so they would also visit him and could see her at the same time.

But yes probably it's better not to uproot her. I haven't heard of companion care. I have financial LPA she set up 5 years ago but not health, trying to sort that out. It is tricky because no one around to help locally or siblings. I think that if I can manage to set up some care locally now, for example there is a day centre I am setting up for her where they pick you up and drop you back, she was interested in that. When I'm over I have a long list of these things plus the cleaning and organising, and am in a panic trying to sort out each thing but once they're in place obviously it will be easier and then just a case of seeing if she is happy with it. I just feel massively guilty because I am not going to move over there. I wish she could have moved here when the kids were small but then she travelled a lot and has always been very independent and wouldn't have wanted to be very involved with me and kids. We always got on fine but not a very close relationship. But I am very anxious not wanting her to be in danger or neglected. I could just about come over once a month but honestly I am already pressed by different responsibilities and my daughter still lives with me, is in her second to last school year and has had mental health problems, so I also do have to be there for her.

So far we have from my last visit: GP visit and is aware, referral has been done. Local personal independence programme lady from Age UK visited her. Dementia coordinator, cleaning service set up, day centre all coming when I'm there to set up the different things. Deep clean and restock groceries, sort laundry etc, huge tidy. Visited dentist and haircut. My son will visit her every 2 months, will go next week(not much but he is a student and wrapped up in his own stuff). She does meet a friend for coffees and goes to choir most weeks, and does go out every day. One of the neighbours cuts her hedge and keeps an eye on her also. I am thinking about her network and trying to encourage people to visit. Haven't concretely got carer set up but I also have to say, she is very resistant to even having a cleaner, I can't load everything straight on to her in one go. On my last visit I said we had to have a serious talk and said that I noticed she was forgetting a lot and that I wanted her to have support, and she accepts that overall picture and trusts me, but is a bit wary of all these different ladies and the services, and herself doesn't see any problem and is quite happy. So I have to tread a bit carefully. Thanks for your comments!

With that setup I wouldn’t move her. It does mean that you will be carrying more stress but I do think losing that entire network and familiarity would be almost completely negative.

It does mean that you will be running her life. Just as one service gets set up, something else will drop out. It’s not going to be easy. Having your son at least in the country is a good thing. I’m not quite clear if you currently have remote access to her banking via the PoA - you need to get that set up. With some banks you will have to actually visit them with an appointment, ID etc.

Could you look at some form of regular video call, supported by one of the services? I liked the look of the Facebook Portal but haven’t seen it mentioned much. It makes a huge difference to be able to see that she is well/looks unwell etc.

With the 5k euros a month that you would be spending if she were to be in your country, could you look into some sort of alternative with other people being around?

Not in a full-on caring capacity, but for example someone who goes in to clean for her once a week, this person could also do laundry and change bed clothes on another day of the week to spread visits out. maybe someone who does some gardening for her once a week and someone to do home visit haircuts every 8 weeks, someone who does monthly foot and nail maintenance?

we have something like this in place for my grandmother, each person visiting attends on different days so it spreads out when people are popping in, and each person has contact details of a few family members if there is anything they are concerned about.

we have also arranged for online food shopping for her.

the plus of all of this is knowing that even if family are not visiting every day, there will be few gaps in between someone popping into her, and also means that when family visit, we can properly enjoy the visit without the visit being about doing jobs round the place - although we will each do something small when we visit, it won’t be the main focus.

i hope you’re able to find a solution that works for you all

It sounds like you have got her well set up at home, and she already has support available.

In the fairly near future I would swap the cleaner for a companion carer. Do not call her a carer, say she is a cleaner (or whatever type of help your mother will accept). Once you have that in place, you don't have to worry about shopping, cleaning or medical appointments as they will do all that. And you will know there is someone going in every day to check on her and report back to you with any issues. I lived a few hours away from my mother so I depended on them to do it all.

I had financial LPA but didn't have H&W and it never mattered. You can access her funds to pay bills so you shouldn't have a problem.

If she speaks the language 'quite well' that's another very strong argument against moving. If it's not her primary and original language, she's likely to lose it.

So your plan of increasing in situ support is best, I think.

Thanks all. I will definitely look into the companion carer thing. Yes she's likely best staying there with me just organising all the different strands and visiting as much as I can. I spoke to her today (I do phone or FaceTime every day since Covid) , she had been out and about, was very coherent and almost normal sounding. She is enjoying life and able to get out. I just want her to be able to have as much of this as possible. Obviously this is a long term thing with different sorts of care needed at different stages.

This might be difficult to read. Sorry.

You don't know the downward trajectory - decline can be fast. I care for an elderly person (EPICF - elderly person I care for).

I started doing this in Summer 2024 when it became apparent that all was not well. They had some physical disabilities so weren't managing all the stuff your Mum is doing but did online shopping, attended choir and a lunch club and things were Ok - ish.

As fast as I could get support and medical referrals (memory clinic) organised something else had cropped up and the just sorted out level of support was no longer enough. The house was also hoarded and neglected so a lot of repairs needed organised. I too live at a distance and it's really difficult. I persisted though as they were getting a lot out of their social life and desperately wanted to stay at home.

By Summer 2025 a crisis in the house (ceiling collapse) forced them into residential care. Initially short term. But it was so life changing for me that they were safe and we were no longer one missed carer visit away from disaster that my fellow PoA and I decided it was permanent. Do not underestimate this. Multiple people from colleagues to my neighbours have commented on how much better I am. Put your own life jacket on first.

EPICF was really unhappy about the decision but my fellow PoA and I (we both assess capacity in professional contexts) were very confident that EPICF didn't have capacity for this decision. It got a bit complicated as one of EPICF's friends intervened to indicate that they believed there still was capacity. Interestingly this same friend was surprised by the dementia diagnosis when it arrived a few months later. We offered to get an external capacity assessment but in the event EPICF declined that.

Fast forward to early 2026 - EPICF told me they were glad the ceiling had fallen down (I'm pretty sure I posted about it at the time). The reasoning was that it had forced them into care and they feel safe and looked after there. Moving into care has been a good thing. EPICF is brighter, more interested in external events and family. In fact they have just initiated "Happy Easter" messages on the family group chat. Their renewed interest in life makes it easier to visit and as I'm no longer rushing around sorting out house repairs when I visit so I can organise decent outings and things they actually enjoy compared to getting cross they hadn't mentioned the lights in the downstairs loo weren't working. Outings are much appreciated. We've also recently done online lectures with the Victorian Society. Again much appreciated and again something I couldn't have done when I was struggling to sort out care.

So with my own experiences in mind I wouldn't expend energy on a big international move. I'd look to see what is available locally to her in terms of residential care and accept that geography means she may move in a bit sooner than someone with a daughter round the corner. But that is modern living.

Moving into care earlier is only really an option though if you can pay for it unfortunately. I am aware of a bed bound family friend stuck in a really isolating situation in a second floor flat with no lift. They were carried up by ambulance service and cannot leave by any other route. The local authority won't fund residential care, only carer visits. Her family feel strongly it's all financial. The elderly lady is really lonely and declining dramatically. I can only compare this negatively to all the stimulation and love my elderly person receives in their care home community.