Moving elderly mother into a care home - advice appreciated!

[Giraffesdotty]

Hi

My mum is 96 and still living at home with minimal help - just a cleaner, plus carer twice a week who does her washing etc. She has done incredibly well to be independent for so long but admits that it may be time to think about a care home. I should add that she is 2.5 hrs drive from me so it’s very challenging if/when there is an emergency.

At first she was quite resistant to the idea but loves the idea of seeing me and the family most days rather than every 3-4 weeks. Underneath it all I think she’s aware that she is only just managing and is one fall away from having no choice about where she ends up. She is mobile but extremely slow with 2 sticks so this may not last much longer either. She also has clear signs of dementia including little short term memory, lots of repetition etc and is completely housebound.

I have been proactive and looked around 4-5 care homes very close to my home and was impressed by at least 3, to the extent that I could imagine her living in one of them. We are thinking Sept onwards as both my brother and I are away over the summer and I want to be around to help her settle in.

I guess I’m just after some positive stories of moving a parent into care, plus general tips around managing the move. Mum has lived in her house for 60 years, 40 of which were on her own, so it will be a huge change for her.

All advice gratefully received!

I'd like to follow this as I'm in the same boat.

Order Cash's name tapes now for all her clothes.
Make sure she has loads of family photos in nice frames. We stuck labels on the back of the photos, mainly for the staff. "ah so this is your daughter Bruce and her Eric"

I could have written this myself about my own nan. My grandfather and his father built the house from scratch and its where my mum and aunt grew up. Nan was widowed when she was about 86. My mum or aunt would take nan shopping, to GP etc but other than the last 2 years, she did everything within the house herself.

I finally persuaded her to have a cleaner at age 95! She too started developing dementia, but still managed on her own. We had house keys, but she'd often lock an extra bolt thing and the house was locked up like Fort Knox. Mum kept asking her to leave the extra bolt off because if there was an emergency, we couldn't get in. Nan advised that my mum (in her 70's with hip and knee replacements) should just crawl through her bedroom window which was always open!

At 98 she declined, started using a commode and needed help washing, with laundry etc but refused external help. Eventually, she developed a UTI and was hospitalised. The next step was a care home.

Everyone assumed she'd go down hill very fast, BUT, she perked up, got involved in many of the homes activities and lived another 4 yrs to be 102!

My DM moved into a care home at 86. She wasn't safe at home anymore after having numerous falls. She settled in very well. She was a very sociable person but as she needed help to go out anywhere and I worked she spent a lot of her time at home alone just watching the TV. She made lots of new friends and there was always lots of activities going on. She was looked after so well and the staff were so friendly and helpful. We had a deferred payment scheme with the council so the council paid the fees and we repaid it with interest when the house was sold after she passed away.

Do you have LPA for finance? If not, get it sorted asap.

We’re six months down the line from you. I agree with post above - LPA is important. The move was a big adjustment and we’ve found that she’s much better off there in some ways but has lost a lot too. She’s safe, fed well, lots of help when she needs it. But misses her independence. She’s sad about the loss of her home. I would choose somewhere close to you so popping in is as easy as possible, as this has been a positive part for her of moving to the care home. We’re happy with the place we chose but at the same time it doesn’t have to be a permanent move and that thought has made her feel more in control - if she decides this one isn’t for her we can look at other places.

Just moved DF age 90 into a care home next door to us rather than 45 minutes away. It’s early days but we can just pop in -
sometimes more than once in a day and he can come round to us easily. I can him out for jaunts rather than trying to clean/shop etc. I know he has company and is looked after. He is eating regularly and is spending less time asleep.
We are ‘trying it out’ for now but I hope he agrees to stay.
i would say go for homely and friendly rather than some of the newer very smart places.
Good luck.

My DM was resistant to leaving her home (she was unsafe so it not an option to stay) so we sold it as a respite stay initially, and she realised life was so much easier there and chose to stay. She had a big family house, so we floated the idea that wouldn't it be nice for a young family to be able to enjoy it.

We chose a home local to her so that friends and neighbours could visit - she was about 5 hours away from us.

To be honest if your away over the summer wouldn't it be best to move her before you go on holidays, if she's agreeable. At least you'd know that she was safe whilst your away and unlikely an emergency would stop you going on holiday 😬 then sort the house out afterwards.

You could initially say that it's to make sure she is safe whilst you are away and to see if she likes it.

Few tips, decorate her room with pictures and a few ornaments from home, especially things from her bedroom. You want the room to feel like home when she goes to bed and wakes up. But, don't take anything sentimental to wider family as it will most likely be broken at some point.

If she wears jewellery, especially rings, they will eventually get lost. If Mum is agreeable, I would remove all jewelry.

Clothes, easy care only, nothing will be washed per the label.

Label everything, things go missing as other residents who have dementia tend to wander around collecting things! If Mum has older pairs of glasses keep a spare pair or 2.

Finally from personal experience, if there is a special outfit you want her to wear for her final journey when the time comes, keep it at your own house, we discovered my relatives special outfit was missing the day she died.

If you are selling her house look into a Care Annuity to pay the fees.

Dementia specialist places might be pretty awful for someone like your mum.

I wouldn’t move in in September, it’s like schools and a complete germ soup, moving in during the summer would give her a chance to deal with minimal infection risk.
The care annuity specialist who helped us even said don’t take out a plan until mum has survived the first 3 months and he was right that first winter was a succession of chest infections.

Statistics back this up.

Mum is still doing well five years later and it’s amazing having her round the corner now.

Not just LPA in Finance - get LPA in Health and Welfare too, while she still has her marbles. You can't get either once that ship has sailed, of course - she has to grant it to you with marbles intact.

Without it, you have no control over her medical treatment at a later date when she is deemed to have lost mental capacity.

Don't expect to have any nice expensive items of clothing of hers in the care home - they could get nicked, same with any nice blanket or jewellery. Name tag everything. Tbf I don't think any of that stuff is necessary anyway.

One unusual tip - for any fellows reading this really - have a smart outfit of your own in their wardrobe, a jacket, and trousers, shirt and tie, smart shoes - for any short notice hospital visit that might occur; it doesn't augur well to have to talk to a hospital consultant in elasticated shorts and T-shirt; you will lack leverage and authority.

Any nice pubs or coffee shops or little parks near the care home? A place you can take her out to in a wheelchair?

We had a mini fridge in our mother's room - you can keep cool drinks in there, then again we were visiting daily to give Mum drink.
A tall fan with different speeds and a timer worked wonders for us too, for hot weather.

From my personal experience I looked into spy cameras to have on the back burner - I think I got mine from cctv.com, it was a pinhole one but you can get it with night vision. You may not need to use it, hopefully won't, but if you think you need it then you need it yesterday - you don't want to start researching while stressed.

Thank you everyone - these responses have been both helpful and reassuring.

I do have both kinds of LPA in place, so that’s one less thing to sort out.

A few more questions which spring to mind:

• Is it a good idea for me to sell this to her as a temporary arrangement when I know she’s unlikely to return home, or is this a bit deceptive?
• Is the care home likely to push for an official dementia diagnosis? I’m aware that this extra need can affect which fee bracket you fall into.

I’m very aware that the way in which the move is managed is going to have a big impact on its sucess.

Thanks again for your honesty - it is much appreciated when I start to doubt myself, and it’s such a permanent and life changing decision.

We have no dementia diagnosis.
We are self funding so they did not require one.
i framed it as ‘let’s try it out and see how you get on’ . if he had been keen to return home very quickly I would have found an issue to stay a while longer-( boiler problem. Plumbing issue etc)
I intend to give it at least a month. We’re 2 weeks in. 🤞

From my experience:

1: My DM was adamant that she wouldn’t go into a care home - I think a lot of this was her perception of what it would be like, probably based on the old style of institutional type places. We tried to put help in place for her at home but we knew she wouldn't cope, and there were several crises (one of which involved all three emergency services) which meant I had to drop everything to go and sort things out.

We did sell it as 2 weeks respite and fully expected her to want to come home and I spent those 2 weeks trying to put things in place, but was immensely relieved when she decided that she would stay.

2: The care home will want to do their own assessment. My DM was equally frail and also displayed the same traits as yours wrt to memory loss etc but they were happy to take her without requiring any specialist care.

Thank you both. @Chelmew how's it gone so far?

I agree it's a good idea to frame it as 'see how you get on'.

My mother had dementia and moved to a care home when she was 82. She settled in well in a few weeks and was very happy there until she died 7 years later. The staff were lovely and were brilliant with her. She had a dementia diagnosis but as far as I remember the care home didn't ask to see the letter.

If you are away a lot over summer and she's still at home I would think about increasing the carer visits. I would also start the process with the care home so that you are ready to go in September. They will want to do an assessment to ensure they can meet her needs.

In terms of practical issues, she can still claim Attendance Allowance while she is self funding in the care home. You would only need to stop it if she became Local Authority funded.

And you will have to label all her clothing etc. I wasn't prepared to sew in name labels so I used iron-on, which worked fine. If she wears glasses, find a way of labelling those too as they get put down on a table and picked up by another resident and nobody knows who they belong to!

I have a madly entertaining and brilliant tip re photos.

If you are at the family home and you happen upon photo wallets with the original negatives, you can take the negs to be scanned at Snappy Snaps. These can be made into photos with all the newness and freshness of a BluRay movie, as if they were taken yesterday!

And yes, alright... this is the less entertaining aspect but 'when the time comes' some years down the line, these photos do inevitably get used for the Order of Service. But in this way one can 'make preparations' without making preparations, if you see what I mean. Best these lovely photos are out and in frames for the person to see while they are actually alive.

Do label absolutely everything, including e.g dressing gown belt - my DM’s went missing, never seen again! With the next dressing gown, I stitched the belt on.

And unless you’re prepared to do her laundry yourself, everythung will need to be machine washable and tumble-dry-able. That meant that some of my DM’s dry clean only trousers had to be ditched.

If any of the CH residents have dementia, please be aware that helping themselves to anything they fancy - and often hiding things - is frequently a feature of the disease. At DM’s CH I once left a new pair of leather gloves for literally a minute or two - vanished!

So another reason for labelling absolutely everything.

The visiting hairdresser once left her jacket with car keys in a pocket, on a chair.

It took staff nearly 3 hours to find it, after eagle-eyed checking of most of the 36 rooms!

FIL, after MIL died, had a terrible fall, which needed a hip replacement, but in the end, he was bedbound. After the hospital,, he was moved to a home, and I really cannot complain about his care. The bed was always clean, his pads were changed regularly, and he never suffered ulcers, sores, etc. The staff would often pop in just to see how he was. They shaved him, cut his hair regularly, and his T-shirts were always clean and pressed. At Xmas, they had a pint of beer, and for his birthday, he had a lovely chocolate cake to share.
The food menu was on rotation, and the food looked really nice and fresh. I understand if they can get about there was a tv lounge plus regular activities a, lot of which relatives were invited to. There were regular pet dog visits garden fetes etc

I already posted up thread about my nan loving to be 102 in one.
They used to have various entertainment things on. Local school children singing, residents playing instruments or playing games, chair yoga and visits from companion dogs. They had a regular hair dresser and beautician who did nails/eye brows etc. I agree with labelling everything and don't be surprised if things go missing or your find random clothes in her cupboard.

One of the more unusual things was a photo shoot. Nan had some make- up put on, a floral garland on her head and feather boa around her neck. To top it all off, they had a real pigeon sitting on her shoulder! It was the nicest photo of her in her last years, but also the absolute weirdest! I just wish they'd taken some photos without the bloody pigeon and feather boa! 😕