Care homes make me think people never die

[rockrollerpud]

Recently I was given the news that someone I know died suddenly. Classic late seventies, living life totally normally, seemingly slim, fit and healthy, then gone within 24 hours from heart attack. This was surreal to me. And here is why.

I visit a relative in a care home weekly. And for want of better words, I’ve been visiting so long that I honestly feel like some people can’t die. Or at least, their bodies are just designed to trundle on like a diesel engine car with 200,000 miles on the clock.

Most of them are 80-100 years old. Many sit there all day asleep with their mouths open. Many are overweight, have multiple health conditions, yet they just don’t ever change from that. They go on for years/decades.

I have to say, there are far more women than men in the care home.

Quite regularly, I’ll read on here, that someone struggled at home but then went in a care home and only lasted 1-2 years. Yet I see the majority seem to live forever in the care homes.

Before I knew what I know now about elderly disease and decline, I’d always assumed that by the time I got to a care home, I’d be so spent, I’d only last a few years too. But now it’s freaking me out that I, like many others, could spend 15% of my life in one.

Anyone else a long term visitor to a care home and be shocked at this?

I don’t think it is a money motivated decision.

care homes have wait lists, they always have somebody to fill the bed. And when somebody dies it’s a rapid turnaround to get the room cleared and get the next one is.

So I don’t think it’s money motivated, but I do agree it’s kinder just to let these people go.

OP, I believe statistically people do only live 1-2 years once they move into residential care. Although it was a few years ago now when this was the stat. Maybe they are living longer on average now.

Either way, yes I do agree it’s a miserable existence.

It's elderly, but younger than most people who enter a care home these days.

She once told me she was ‘elderly’ at 50 so I’m sure she thought she was ancient then.
I don’t think it’s young but she also was always old for her age.

I've been a bit disingenuous here as I have some professional involvement too albeit not in-depth knowledge like your friend. It is hoped that in time the new medications will be used as a preventative measure for those identified as very high risk and slowing down for those with moderate symptoms as well as more severe cases but a lot of clinical trials are still needed and of course there need to be better diagnostic methods than there are now, there is a lot of work going on in that field too. But allowing people to live longer independently is what it's all about.

But you have a partner and cousins you've mentioned. So this idea of of being completely on your own and no relatives isn't strictly true is it? Unless your partner doesn't feature in your future?

I think as well its worth remembering one in four people won't have children so it's not a unique situation you're in. The landscape of elderly care is going to look very different when we are older. And those of us that have children, our children are going to have to work until they are 70 probably. They simply aren't going to be on hand 24/7 to help ageing relatives. And neither should they be expected to be.

Why did she go into a care home if you don't mind me asking (and how did she die?) Sorry if I am being too personal ...

71 is officially elderly, and certainly not young, but I don't think of 71 as elderly. I do think it's close to elderly though (75 and older is elderly IMO.)

I do think 71 seems a bit too young to die though. Though IMO I would rather die at 71 of a sudden heart attack, (for example,) having been healthy up to that point, and active and leading a full life, than live to 85 with the last 8-10 years of my life with dementia/alzheimers, not knowing who I am or who anyone else is, unable to do anything by myself... drive, feed myself, dress myself, shower myself, go to the loo myself, and just shoved into a care home! No thanks!

,

I know people like that. A lot has to do with mental attitude.

People can feel old when young because of illness of course.

For sure old age care shouldn’t be for profit and everyone should have good care. There are already several levels of care according I think. Some people are left to manage with a few visits from different carers long after they should really be in residential care. Others can afford live in care or to choose their carehome in which case its extremely expensive and often profit driven ( but not always). If local authorities were in charge of not for profit homes those paying would still have more choices obviously but i’d wager it would be better for everyone.

Well, I don't refute this though I am surprised to find it happened in Surrey. May I ask how old he is? Maybe that makes a difference to whether you go on the list. Also, my mum had advanced Parkinson's, which of course is incurable so maybe that was another tick on the box of the secret state?

In response, here is a letter I had published in Metro newspaper last year, to chime with the Assisted Dying Debate. It seems to be a case of, whatever you want, you can't have.

I mean, honestly, there are a few Surrey care homes I could recommend for your uncle and I doubt you'd have to wait too long. A Barchester care home would be a good bet - one of theirs (though not in Surrey) were in the Telegraph earlier this year and the tell-tale word 'dehydration' popped up. My sister and I had to take turns to visit Mum daily at Barchester's Reigate Beaumont to give her drink. At the time I hadn't pieced it together. Just thought it was one of those things, like being ghosted by tradesmen after a half-hour chat.

Couldn't agree more.
My DM had a medical episode at 75 and whilst she was in hospital, we were told to prepare ourselves for the worst. She rallied so they dumped her in a care home on palliative saying they'd done what they could for her (basically given her such a severe infection that she ended up doubly incontinent and bed bound) and she likely had a few weeks left. She was desperate to get home so I arranged it all with SS. The care package is 4 x day. My DF is her carer.

It's been just over 4 years now and the physical and mental strain for my DF is off the scale and the mental strain for me is horrific. I do all their life admin, visit 2/3 a week whilst holding down a job, 2 kids, dealing with a shit menopause and doing all my own life admin and desperately trying to have a life of my own, fitting in exercise where i can. It's fucking relentless.

DM now has dementia too so visiting her is painful and hard. I've wished countless times that she would just die in her sleep which I hate myself for but I'm on my knees. (Doesn't help that she's a travel agent for guilt trips/emotional blackmail 🙄)

The only time we hear from her surgery is if they want to do flu jabs etc. Which she has. She's 80 and DF is 83.

I've learnt a lot from this thread and will definitely be checking out the option of choosing what, if any, treatment or over-60s testing to have in future. The thought of ending up like my DM is positively terrifying. 😔

I’m sorry that sounds really hard. I fully sympathise. The stress levels due to the relentlessness are, as you say, off the charts. Our bodies and minds are not designed to endure such extended chronic stress. Heart breaking for all.

Exactly this. The care homes are 40% dementia cases and they seem to be because we’ve refused to let people go from other natural causes first. I read somewhere that every one of us will get dementia - it just depends how long we live and if we die of something else before it gets its claws into us.
My DF died early seventies. It felt premature but I very quickly realised it was a gift. They were operating on him with a triple heart bypass and they messed up causing him a huge stroke. He was brain dead and never came round from the operation. Now I genuinely thank god above that he suffered no pain and had no idea. Otherwise I’d more than likely be visiting him now for years in the care home with dementia along with my DM and it would just be double the extended suffering.

There's a woman 108 in a local care home sharp as a tack. So no not everyone does.

Continuing the theme of why people end up spending way too many years being kept alive in care homes, I recall how three months before my MIL ended up in hospital with Alzheimer’s symptoms, and subsequently a care home, that one evening she pressed her care line button. An ambulance came. She had stomach pain. At the time, there were backlogs of ambulances call outs (like 12 hours waiting for one). Miraculously she was seen within hours and operated on within hours. It transpired she had a twisted bowel. The surgeon’s words were “You are one lucky lady. If I didn’t operate now, you’d have been dead within a few hours”

I’m not sure she was lucky that the surgeon saved her life that day. She had already been struggling for years and already had a dementia diagnosis. Three months after he saved her life she was in a care home distressed, violent and begging to die. And now they override us and give her antibiotics at the first sign of any chest infection.

Someone even mentioned that the care line played a part in saving her life that night. And it did. And I organised for it to be installed. But should I have? You never know if you did the right thing - you have to live with the weight of these decisions forevermore.

I feel like I fail her every day. Same with my own mother. 😔

True but from my extended experience in visiting care homes, these cases are the absolute outliers.

Do you think FIL would back up quickly if you responded with "aww thanks Jim, I'd love to work full time. I hadn't realised you were happy to pick up our kids, like you do SIL's to enable me to do it. I'll get straight onto my manager".

My dad was not in a care home but he had terminal cancer. I think all the treatment just to extend his life in extreme pain unable to care for himself was tantamount to torture.

Im very clear to my family. If I have a good chance of recovery and quality of life treat me. But if I have little independence don’t torture me that way. I’d not want the antibiotics if I wasn’t able to say for myself that I want them. Give me all the good painkillers for sure but but please consider if it’s best for me or if you are being selfish keeping me alive. My father was always very clear he would never want to live like that but then when it came to it he couldn’t hurt his family, then he was too out of it to change his mind.

@Sortingmyself (6.30 today.)

Oh my gosh, that sounds horrific and relentless. I am so sorry for you, your life sounds brutal at the moment. I really hope things get better for you all soon. I think. that in cases like this, there really is a case for euthanasia to be legalised. We would never let one of our dear pets live like this, (like your mum) indeed we would be prosecuted if we did, yet as a society, it is deemed reasonable and acceptable to let someone live like this, indefinitely, with ZERO quality of life, and severely impacting the lives of everyone around us. Sometimes for YEARS!

I wish you well. Hope things improve very soon.

@Burntt (11.44)

I could not agree more, and feel exactly the same. I do NOT want to be kept alive artificially when my quality of life is zero, and I am housebound and can't do anything for myself, just pumped with multiple drugs to keep me existing. No thanks!

Wrong thread?

I was born in the late 1960s (I am in my mid-late 50s now,) my parents were born in the 1930s, and my grandparents in the 1910s. My aunts and uncles were born in the 1930s and 1940s and my great aunts and uncles mostly in the 1910s. I have ZERO recollection of ANY of them ever having 4 or 5 carer visits a day for 5, 6, 7+ years, having adult nappies, being fed by anyone else, being 100% housebound for some years, being pumped with loads of drugs, or being put in a care home and staying there for 5-10 years, or more, costing £4000 to £5000 a month. ... (well, the equivalent of that then....)

Never happened.

Nor do I recall - ever - any of my older relatives getting bowel cancer screening kits, breast screening appointments, flu jabs, shingles jabs, colonocopies, MRIs, CT scans, multiple x-rays, multiple blood tests, and multiple dozens of medical appointments a year, that many people over 60 seem to have in this day and age. It's like (as has been said before - maybe on this thread or another one quite recently) they are trying to find something wrong with people, and turn relatively healthy slightly older people (55-65) into patients. The bowel cancer screening kits are sent to the over 60s. Why only then? Plenty of people get it much younger... So why do they focus ONLY on people pretty much over 60?

It feels like there's an agenda at play, to want (older) people to be sick and keep them that way, and even make them a bit more sick, so the profits can be maximised. Even if people are at home having 4 carers a day, someone is still making a lot of money out of that. (AND out of all the meds people are given, and the multiple tests and scans and screening tests they are made to do!) 2 women (in their late 30s and early 40s, I know are carers, and they do 35-40 hours a week, (for an agency) and they get paid £17 an hour, plus travelling expenses. (That's nearly £700 a week each one is getting, not including the travelling expenses.)

Something just feels very off about it all.... As I said, all of this (that we're all going on about on here,) never seemed to happen pre 21st century, not that I can recall. Maybe the odd person here and there of course, but not many, and I certainly can't recall people being put into care homes and languishing in them for many years at the cost of sometimes £5,000 a month, sometimes more, and having to sell their bloody HOME to fund it! Pre 21st century, I never knew one case where that happened. Not one!

.

I know someone who claims that the care home finally let their relative die a month after their private funding ran out. 10 years in the care home. I’m starting to think there’s truth in it.

You better believe it op.
Our parents are being kept alive (not that you could call it actually living in most cases) purely for the purposes of liquidating their inflated assets.
When property prices drop to normal levels and the gravy train is over the owners of care homes will start running very expensive assisted dying facilities instead.
The profits will be even higher! Previously they had to host them for several years in order to get the half a million equity out of their house.
Once the house is only worth a couple of hundred thousand they'll be able to get that money in about half an hour.

This is horrifying, absolutely awful, but honestly, I believe it 100%!