alzheimer questions

nicter

Hi spaghetti. If your father is in a psychiatric unit and I assume he is then from what you describe of his challenging behaviour he will probably meet the continuing care criteria which means his care will be paid for. His behaviour will have to be settled (ish) for 2 weeks before they can undertake the assesment but it certainly should be done. Ask the ward staff about this if it hasnt been mentioned. They are legally bound to do this assessment
Good luck and do hope you find a placement where your father will be as happy as he can be.

spaghetti_monster

Thanks for all your replies.

loulou123 - it's good to know that there are care homes out there that could cope with him. I really don't know what went wrong the last time - Mum and social worker had a meeting about where he should go for his respite, but the home clearly could not cope with him.
I wonder if a factor could have been that Mum is a great coper and tends to downplay things. But she did tell them about the violent aggressive tendencies and sundowning - all normal symptoms.

nicter - yes he's in a secure psychiatric hospital. Some family went today and told me that the doc said he's doing better physically as he's managing to eat more. Apparently a social worker will come in 2 weeks and they will start to discuss what happens from there - so I guess that's the assessment period you mention.

Yes, it's a truly horrible disease, and we just want to make him as comfortable and settled as possible.
Thanks again for the replies.

Rosabella

Sorry to butt in on someone else's thread, but I'm just experiencing this for the first time and I wondered if you had any advice. Pretty horrible situation - my neighbour has terminal cancer and his wife has a form of dementia - because she would not go to the drs, she has today been sectioned and removed from her home. Obviously her husband could not look after her any more and she was increasingly violent towards him. Anyway, the point of this is - what kind of place might they have taken her to? Would we be able to visit her? She does have days where she seems 'normal'. I can't bear to think of her having been removed from her home and having no visitors. She has no other close family that I know of and we have been neighbours for 6 years, they are effectively surrogate grandparents to our children, and I hope we've done our best for the both of them but this has still happened.
Sorry for going on - I just feel a bit out of my depth here.

nicter

If she has been sectioned she will be in an elderly acute admission ward of the local psychiatric hospital.

spaghetti_monster

Sorry to hear about the situation Rosabella.

My Dad was also sectioned and is in a psychiatric hospital. They seem very relaxed about visitors and the visiting hours are quite long. I think it would be great if you visited - in my Dad's case although the staff are great, there's only so much they can do and when family visit we can give him an extra wash/change/help with eating.
Although it's a very sad time, I'm glad that he's being properly observed and assessed at last. Before this it was just intermittent visits from SS and nurses. As you know sufferer's behaviour can change a lot so I never thought they got a good picture of what he's like.

Errata

About moneysaving.... I think we're pretty much ok as we got some good advice. We were told that power-of-attourney was not-relevant and too time consuming/expensive in our case. Mum and Dad have no significant savings (only a few thousand, and all in Mum's name). Their main asset (house) has been split and wills have been sorted out.

Just wanted to pick up on this. If your dad is in hospital under a section then when he is moved to an appropriate care home the cost of his care should be fully funded by Continuing Health Care.
You need to make sure this happens.

spaghetti_monster

Thanks Errata,
He was placed in hospital under a section, but since a couple of weeks they've said he's not under section anymore, but that he had to stay because he was too weak. It was just since yesterday that they say he's physically better (eating more) and will have a visit from the SS in 2 weeks.
Does that still come under continuing care?

Errata

One way of getting out of funding CHC is to lift a section. If you post on the over 50's board there are a number of people with in depth experience of CHC, self funding, charges being placed on property to repay council funding etc.

nicter

Errata wrote: »

Just wanted to pick up on this. If your dad is in hospital under a section then when he is moved to an appropriate care home the cost of his care should be fully funded by Continuing Health Care.
You need to make sure this happens.

This only happens if the father was placed on a section 3 of the mental health act. It is more likely he was placed on a section 2 which is an assesment order and doesnt attract continuing care funding

Errata

nicter wrote: »

This only happens if the father was placed on a section 3 of the mental health act. It is more likely he was placed on a section 2 which is an assesment order and doesnt attract continuing care funding

That may be what's happened, but it doesn't mean CHC can't be applied for.