Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

silvercar

Had some in-law family shindig yesterday, one couple there were 90 and 93. All lively and chatty in spirit, their bodies doing pretty well for their age. He complained that he now needed to hold onto the hand rail on stairs and carried a stick for walking distances. She (the 90 year old spring chicken) was saying that he thought he should stop driving soon, but it would restrict them so much that she didn't want him to.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

Been there, looked at that. Trying to keep the old in the current town, rather than putting them somewhere they don't know at all.

It's not a care home we need. It's their own little place, with facilities/communal stuff/activities on site and a manager and care button etc... with the option of getting other services in as required.

Apologies, I was under the impression her dementia was going to be an issue...

fwiw, we move my granny twice, the first time to a self contained flat, the second to the care home, or three times, then a more advanced care home. In retrospect it was the wrong choice. By the time she got to the care home number one it was too late to adjust to it. She kept offering to make everyone tea and disappearing into her bathroom and wondering where the hell the kitchen was (she didn't have any kitchen facilities there).

The other thing about a care home is the eating thing....because your's is forgetting to eat you had said...well, that's fine while you are there...but what about when you get your life back....? How well will she be monotored. My already tiny 6 and a half stone granny got to an emaciated state by the time we had her moved to a care home because the monitoring of food etc in the flat just wasn't enough and she forgot to eat.

obviously, you are with old and can see how the situation is, but then, so could my family with Granny, but we didn't really appreciate the speed of decent possible and also, how hard moves were after that point. In fact, Granny often presumed she was back in the nurses' accomodation she'd started independant life in, so it could have been worse....she liked that life better than the one she escaped or the marriage she went into I think!

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

What happens to the elderly who have no-one to find these things for them?

less choice, less care, less back up if stuff goes wrong. Its an incredibly vulnerable situation to be in and I dread it. My parents have dh and me, dh is likely to have noone. I do expect him to keep his marbles though, and hopefully cope with daily housekeeping..all the other grandparents on his side did.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

Sounds like sheltered housing.

What happens to elderly people in hospital who are ready to go home but need sheltered housing? I've heard of bed blocking, but I can't believe they stay in hospital for 2 years before a place is found.

Is there an organisation (social services/ GP services) that can help you through the maze?

What happens to the elderly who have no-one to find these things for them?

Bed blockers get priority. Tried housing, A-SS, GP/DistNurse .... not found anybody yet who knows what's what/what's available, or whose job it is to help.... lots of websites say there's help available, but there's not. Age Concern said to phone Housing; Housing said they can't help, all they can do is add the old to the housing list (28 days to be processed .... then you bid/wait for up to 2 years). Most people either plan ahead, or get help at home... they slowly get into the system.

A-SS woman turned up randomly clutching all the ones for sale in her hand .... but buying isn't an option as the old is ... old. We wouldn't get any use out of it - and would be stuck with it for 1-2 years after that, potentially when the old's been moved to full care.

PasturesNew

It's mostly stupid stuff the old gets stuck with. e.g. tonight - I bought milk (would need a pint delivered twice a week by a milkman); couldn't get the 'tab' off that's under the cap (even I struggled with that to be honest). So old can boil a kettle and make a drink.... so long as there's milk in the fridge and it's been opened in the first instance.

It's not enough for "care" by any means, needs really just a resident warden/people around so the old could ask "can you just open this" twice a week.

PasturesNew

Also ... the old's a filthy mare. Won't care/notice all the crumbs, drips, splashes and dropped food occurring in their wake - and it wouldn't occur to the old to wipe it up... potentially causing a slip hazard when they next walk that way and skid on it

Old also does the washing up .... but half of it needs washing up properly again once they're done

So needs a daily cleaner to wipe/sweep drips, spills, random food/drinks .... and cast an eye over the washing up to see it was done right. Could get away with one every 2-3 days, but there'd be random bits of food everywhere (including all down the front of the old who doesn't bother changing their dress ever unless you point and say "that's day 3 now and I can still see day 1's gravy on it")

JonnyBravo

lemonjelly wrote: »

I still can't do this.

So, JB, teach!:D

:rotfl:tried to do this once and of course it appeared as a link. Doh!
Deleted that message as it would confuse.
Use the following format but replace {} brackets with [] brackets

{url=http://www.websiteaddress.com}Words you want to appear{/url}

Simple as!

michaels

Or just highlight the bit you want to link to using the mouse then click the world and chain button and paste in the url which you have copied from the browser address bar in another tab.

JonnyBravo wrote: »

:rotfl:tried to do this once and of course it appeared as a link. Doh!
Deleted that message as it would confuse.
Use the following format but replace {} brackets with [] brackets

{url=http://www.websiteaddress.com}Words you want to appear{/url}

Simple as!

We have a digital radio / ipod dock that suddenly took to turning itself on at about 11.30PM every night, luckily in the kitchen but it took a while of waking up to the radio in the middle of the night for me to realise that it was switching itself on and that we had not just gone up to bed and forgotten to turn it off.

There then followed about an hour of frustration without the manual trying to figure out how to switch the alarm off before eventually realising that actually the soft touch buttons were no longer working properly and so control was somewhat limited, however I did eventually manage to reduce the volume, change the turn on time to about 7 in the morning and also unfortunately switch the default station to the local FM one. Now none of these settings seem to change any more so we have breakfast to phone ins on all the big stories such as how you should approach your neighbours about their overgrown hedge and other major world issues.

I quick google suggested that this state of affairs was not uncommon for these £20 Tesco Technika sets.

StevieJ

Why don't the charities use paypal for donations? Every time I try to make a donation they want my credit card details and I puttng my details out there if I can avoid it.

StevieJ

I was just on the Dec charity website and they say

Thanks to the generosity of donors and support from our media and corporate partners, we have raised more than £750 million since our launch in 1963 which has helped save lives and rebuild communities devastated by disasters.

£750 miilion doesn't seem a lot over 47 years considering they have raised £53 million since July alone.

The DEC launched the appeal in July to help the people of East Africa who are suffering in the worst drought of the last 60 years. The latest figure for donations raised by the UK public is £53 million.