Help needed please - CH for someone with dementia

Toxteth_OGrady

Hi,

I have an old age relative who suffers severe dementia. She lives alone but has frequent daily care provided in her own home.

The problem is that when she is alone she turns the room thermostat on the gas central heating down but then forgets she's done it and the house ends up getting quite cold until one of the carers comes in and turns it back up again.

I'm open to suggestions on how best to solve the problem. I was wondering whether there was a way of fitting some type of tamper-proof thermostat controller that could only be accessed by the carers? Any thoughts or specific recommendations on whether this is a feasible solution?

There are no affordability issues with leaving the heating on 24/7.

TIA

:cool:
TOG

Pincher

Tape the dial up. Allow ventilation so the thermostat still works.

delain

Are the carers turning it up too high for her? There's 'warm' as in your relative won't freeze and should be comfortable, and there's 'warm' as in what care asisstants are used to, which may well be too warm for your relative. A lot of OH's family (and his ex GF) have their houses so stiflingly hot I struggle to stay there too long and have to keep stopping myself from turning the thermostat down.

Your relative may have dementia but is likely to be intentionally turning it down and just forgetting to change it?

They might have dementia but surely that's no reason to roast them alive.

If you do tamper proof the thermostat, make sure it's not at 30 odd degrees

gas4you

Honeywell do a basic room stat that you set the temperature then fit the cover so nobody can alter it.

It is not meant to be constantly changed though.

elsien

As an aside, is she turning it down because she's worried about paying the bills? Although you say there are no affordability issues, some people do get a bit hung up on that, regardless of income. Addressing that may help her to be able to leave it alone.

Our work thermostat is a 7 day one where you set the temperature for different times of day, so if you press the override button and turn it up or down, after an hour it goes back to its original setting. It turns itself on and off automatically depending on the room temperature and what you've chosen for that time of day. It's not the old dial that you just turn up and down, most of the staff won't touch it as it's too complicated, might something lke that help?