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?

What is nasty about it?

they are pushing agendas for the criminal bill.....you never know who is paid to do what, where....mn is a massive audience

My mother is 90, with Alzheimer’s, immobile, doubly incontinent and incoherent.

Yet she seems to just go on, and on, and on…

Anyone trying to get my DM (with dementia) to brush her teeth, or to brush them for her, was frankly on to a losing wicket, as my DF used to say.

Slightly aside from the main theme of the thread but I have recently been on a walking weekend with a pal who has osteoarthritis in her knee, very painful but the surgeon said she wouldn't be considered for a knee for at least 10 years. Im not aure if he gave her a list of things to avoid ut she was doing less and less as the pain got worse - UNTIL her GP had the insight to refer her to a different specialist who told her the less she did the weaker she would become and the more her knee would hurt as a result.

They gave her some rehab exercises and told her to keep using it - and she is loads better and happy to do 8 or 10 miles in hilly terrain now, knowing it's benefiting her.

This might be quite irrelevant to you of course but pretty shocking how because the surgeon was onky interested in joints, he seemed to know nothing whatsoever about muscles 🙁

Full of posters repulsed by, variously, disabled people, fat people, old people and - especially - economically inactive people.

Yes I have and it's not want I want my DD to do for me. The day I get told "sorry Scar it's Alzheimer's" will be the day I stop all medication. With a bit of luck I'll be dead before the disease really kicks in.

There’s great assistive technology that will alert emergency services if it’s left on! Or a shut off valve that can turn your gas off completely. They can take my oven away for all I care lol

Oh god I hope not. FIL is going into care tomorrow, at 78. He was medically revived from dying a month ago, is too weak to walk or care for himself. Multiple health issues. I have wondered why the hospital did it, knowing the outcome. They'll keep sending him to hospital, stabilise him & send him back. I suspect it'll go on for years. MIL was the same for many years (didn't make it to age care). Neither were active at all, very poor diets.

Whereas my parents are active, eat well & are fully independent. DM is the same age as FIL, DF in his 80s. If they need age care it'll only be for a short time.

I do think it depressing medicine thinks they should just keep people alive, regardless of the quality of life to both the elderly & the families involved.

By the time you hear that sentence you won't be making any coherent decisions, sorry.

My nan was 27 stone and 86 when she died!

My Nan died when she was 82, before she died she had (with carers support) cared for my grandad as he had cancer for a few years.

The year after he died she ensured she did everything she hadn’t been able to do, she redecorated new furniture etc Her mobility wasn’t great, but sufficient enough to live independently and everything thing else worked fine.

She then had a bad fall, hip damaged and whilst in hospital had a urine infection which affected her mentally. When admitted she immediately signed a DNR.

Two weeks later she died, the hospital surprised. But none of us where, they had told her she would be going into a care home as the damage to her hip wouldn’t be repaired. That wasn’t my Nanna she hated the thought of that level of care.

We all miss her terribly, but in our own way I’m glad she didn’t end up in a care home she would have been so sad and it wouldn’t have been the right path for her.

I’d accept carers coming in. 4 times a day, keep me clean, keep me fed. Cost a hell of a lot less than a care home. Half of my job is screening safeguardings in care homes and 80% of them are frequent falls. Care homes do not prevent falls. They just mean you’re less likely to be on the floor for days bleeding out. I also will happily have a gas shut off valve or remove my oven and I’ll pay for hot meal deliveries. You’ll have to drag me in to a care home kicking and screaming

It is very sad and scary. My grandma lived to 101, the final decade or so in a care home with vascular dementia, no idea what was going on. She died over 20 years ago so this is not recent. Now DM has dementia, is 88 and manages at home with DF and carers, but I guess at some point she will be in a home. She has poor mobility and nearly blind so her quality of life isn't good but she has no health problems that threaten her life. It would kill me to see her suffer in the same way as her mother - makes us all sad and worried.

The average length of time in a home is two years, which is almost exactly how long my mother lasted. There was really no choice but for to go there as she had dementia and could not walk or look after herself. Unfortunately I knew all too well that it is not what she would have wanted before the dementia developed, and indeed there was a long phase after she had a stroke but before the dementia fully developed when she regularly proclaimed that she wanted to die. But what else could we do? Little as she would have wanted a care home, she would have wanted even less to be dependent on one of her children or relatives, and if we had given her her wish and let her go home she would have been back in hospital within days. I guess, had money been no object, we might have had round the clock nursing care for her at home, but I don't think she would have been any happier with that, either.

The advantage of the care home was that she was amongst people who cared and knew how to look after her whilst allowing her her dignity, and who made the effort to make her life a bit more interesting. As it happened, the downside was that it all coincided with Covid so our visiting was severely restricted. We were asked whether we wanted the works to be thrown at her if she caught Covid and, given her frequently proclaimed wish to die, we said no, but in the event it didn't arise. And ultimately she slipped away quite peacefully after a couple of years when a very slowly-developing cancer became more active.

I agree with all of this. It's not irrelevant at all. I asked him for physio and he actually refused. Fortunately for me, I also saw another consultant for my shoulder - had a shoulder decompression for a trapped muscle caused by too much moving and handling - and was referred to physio for that.

Turns out that physio policy now is that they look at the whole person, so the woman whom I saw gave me thigh exercises (as well as working on my shoulders, etc) and referred me to a specialist exercise class which has been really beneficial.

I do have some osteoarthritis, but apparently that's caused by the underlying issue which is that my knee caps are unstable. (I have patella alta.)

My intention is to continue to work on my strength exercises and to try to lose a bit more weight and then ask for a second opinion. (I reckon that the first bloke just thought "Oh. Fat, unfit old woman..."

The trainers at the gym told me that they're used to working with people with my condition and I've also seen an osteopath. I've already built up thigh strength, etc and I've noticed that it's now a bit easier for me to go downstairs - I'm no longer doing the old lady sidewards shuffle.

Interesting thread. I personally don’t think it’s a financial issue given how many people are waiting in hospitals for placements.
In my opinion Care or Residential homes because there are no nurses there are very cautious and will ring an ambulance very quickly. Once there often the crews have no choice but to take the patient in, leading to antibiotics, and live another day. Also I suspect longevity due to regular meals, company, skin integrity and somebody physically around, so even if a resident falls they are found quickly therefore reducing the risks of kidney damage and pneumonia.

I know OP, it’s sad. My grandmother spent 8 years in one - she couldn’t see, hear, eat or remember anything but she had the heart and lungs of an ox and passed away aged 97.
I would say the final 10 years of her life were years I’d rather have missed.

Well in that case I won't have the ability to remember to take my meds by the time I get to diagnosis so no great loss.

Interesting thread - thank you.

my beloved MiL age 90 went into a lovely care home near us last year after a bout of gastroenteritis left her extremely weakened.

She is now bounced back - benefiting from good food and not having to worry about laundry and maintenance of her own home. She is sharp minded and walks through the care home grounds every day with her rollator- but the mental and social stimulation in the home is minimal apart from the good relationships she has built with care home staff.

i do wonder how we can improve her quality of life? She used to love her book group but not enough of the other ‘inmates’ are well enough for her to engage with. Does anyone have a similar experience or any tips to share?

I am thinking: honestly, people believe in DNR or not DNR. Doctors are only humans and not gods. It does not work like that.

If you can pay then I’d suggest seeing if she’d like a carer to take her out once a week to do something she enjoys. Coffee, garden centre, day centre, church. I think one of the things missing when someone goes in to a care home is the ability to continue to be part
of the community.

I think it must be an atypical sample of people that you know, as the average survival time for people in nursing homes is only just over two years. And it must be remembered that only about 10% of people in the UK ever go into a home at all, in the UK. Average life expectancy still hovers around 79 for men and 83 for women. But yes, there are a small number of people who just go on and on for perhaps a lot longer than they should, living with conditions that would have killed them at 75 or whatever had they been born a few decades earlier.

I tell myself that if life was no longer worth living I would refuse my medication. Obviously there are some older people with dementia who don't have the capacity for that. But there are plenty who do - and very, very rarely do they go ahead and do it. The survival instinct is very strong. We tell ourselves that if we were 98 years old and mostly suffering, we would end it. But most of us wouldn't.

I think we treat animals at the end of their lives better than we treat humans.

Once the patient has no assets, the council has to pay.