Coping with parent's Dementia/Alzheimer's - does it fit here?

[silentcatastrophe]

Anyone else in the same situation? Just breaking through some of the barriers and finding out a lot of things that are not good, but from the POV of my parents' children, to be expected.

The brother who has mislaid POA is the one who is sorting out the care [screech emoticon]. I am not all that surprised as I didn't think it was that important when I signed it. I think my father was being difficult and I'd had enough.

Re. Vulnerable Persons. I think that both my dad and my other brother may fall into that category. My brother has had rumblings with the police for all the wrong reasons (dv which he learned from his father). My father has got away with it, although the memory clinic know about his behaviour.

I so hope my more sensible brother finds this sodding bit of paper.

I went for a lovely walk with Dh this morning with the dogs. It was so good to get out and be together on a walk with just us. We were trying to think of the last time we did that!

Newparty planner is right about continuing health care. You can apply to get all the care paid for by the NHS if it is seen to be health rather than social care. HOWEVER dementia is seen as a social care need rather than health so there has to be more than "just" dementia IYSWIM. My father gets continuing health care because he had a number of strokes as well as his dementia.

From the dept of health site

Who is eligible for NHS continuing healthcare?
Anyone assessed as having a certain level of care needs may receive NHS continuing healthcare. It is not dependent on a particular disease, diagnosis or condition, nor on who provides the care or where that care is provided. If your overall care needs show that your primary need is a health need, you should be eligible for NHS continuing healthcare. Once eligible for NHS continuing healthcare, your care will be funded by the NHS but this is subject to review, and should your care needs change the funding arrangements may also change.

here is the link

I'm speaking to Mum's psychiatrist next week. All this information is v. useful - both practical and emotional. It's happening to lots of people.

Well... An update... I spoke to Mum's shrink today. I made contact with SS. I spoke to one of Mum's money people. I spoke to my brother.

There is a block. It is my father. My brother is afraid to broach the subject with my father. He is afraid of making my father angry, and my father will then threaten to cut him out of his will if he says more. I know the scenario. It's happened to me. I said to my father that I really couldn't care less, and that he was a bastard and a bully, and having been diagnosed with cancer, who knows what time I have left. It's the control freakery in action.

Anyway, both I and my brother have been asked to attend the memory clinic appointment next week. Oh the joy. Why can't I have a helpful family?

So sorry you are going through this. Sorry to hear about your diagnosis too.. You really don't need the extra stress. Have you spoken to the solicitor?

Yes. He's just about alright, and I think he'll do. One of the POAs hasn't been signed and nobody knows where the form is. Mum is not really able to sign again. Sometimes she can barely write her name.

Oh dear. I am sorry - these wretched forms. I have just signed a whole lot more - about ten altogether I think - because you need so many originals. Have you got signed consent to discuss her medical care with her doctors? I suppose you must have if you have spoken to psychiatrist. I am sorry your dad is being so difficult.

I expect we will cover that sort of thing next week. SS has just called and I hope will get lots more info from my brother. I think we are going to try and get things with help of SS and anything else we will get privately. SS have said they can be rather slow so we will have to get things going before their involvement.

I have said to SS that both my parents need support, but not that my dad is a violent manipulative bullying thug.

oh bumpety bump!

Is there any reason why you can't be honest to SS about your dad? Covering up might not be the best thing for your mum in the longrun.

Wel... SS spoke to him yesterday and they were apparently on the phone for about an hour. I am sick of my stupid parents. They are both incredibly unhelpful, and frankly I may as well walk away. My mum doesn't want to go to the memory clinic and she thinks she's fine. Oh yeah, the invisible man moving things around, not being able to write her name, getting lost in the place she's lived in for 40 years....

So.. The loons have just announced yet another foreign holiday.

You know - you might be better to step back and let ss deal with it for now. I cannot begin to tell you how exhausting and draining it is. We have had it for nearly 15 years. It takes over your life. Even when they go into residential care you still end up having to do all the hospital/doctor/opticians/memory clinic/hearing aid/chiropodist appointments, and being called every five minutes by the care home staff because of problems.

I have been through it with parents, and am just starting with the in laws.

Yes, you are right. I really think we have done as much as we can but I am not in the mood to make a 350 mile round trip for an appointment with the memory clinic for myself and my brother.

At least SS know about them. No doubt my dad has been telling them lies, but I expect they get a lot of that.

I have been thinking about my dad's behaviour. It is completely blocking any help whatsoever. My mum thinks he has something wrong with his brain and I think she is probably right. I think he has some sort of personality disorder. There are ways he behaves which are simply not normal. I wonder if it is a really silly idea to ask the shrink what she thinks.

Not a silly idea at all. It doesn't do any harm to ask, and it might help.

It is really mashing my head, that we are not dealing with someone with normal reactions. Dh recieved a letter from dad, and was rather anticipating a lunatic rant, full of hatred and vitriol. Luckily it was not.

I have a file of letters like this, which I was told by Womens Aid to keep in case I needed to take out an injunction against him. I don't know what the implications of his madness are with respect to being of sound mind. I don't know if he has ever been of sound mind.