Home care for elderly Grandmother.

Gettingtherequickly

I feel for you. My family had the same problem, fiercely independent grandmother who had a stroke. As a family, we knew that at 95, living at home was no longer going to be an option and there was no way on earth that she would have lived with any of her family, she had lived in the same house for nearly 80 years, therefore was very familiar with every creak and would not have been happy living in a "new" house! Luckily, following her discharge from hospital she was admitted to another unit for physio & respite which gave leeway on deciding her future, but I swear she had to be awkward about that also! My grandfather was an alcoholic and consequently she had little or no money until after he died, then it was her greatest pleasure in life to spend every penny she could on all of us, including grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, but woe betide us if we spent anything on her. I don't know whether she realised she would not be going home, but she took the difficult decision about a home from us by dying suddenly. That was her, caring to the very end, no money spent for her care and no one had to sign on the dotted line for admission to a home.

belfastgirl23

There may be a halfway house

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/diana-athill-move-old-peoples-home

Just a thought, but I think if your grandma does have some money to spend she could find somewhere that she could actually be happy rather than somewhere to merely exist. The other thing to be aware of is to try to have some of the discussions now whilst she is still able to communicate properly with you. A distant branch of my own family is being torn apart at the minute by discussions on what to do with an elderly father who has dementia. One lot of his children are insistent he stays at home whilst the other lot maintain that he was always pragmatic and when in his right mind would have wanted to go into care rather than place the huge emotional and financial strain on the family that he currently is doing. But of course no one had the direct conversation with him whilst he was still able for it.

Good luck, it's a tough thing to have to do

There_Goes_Trouble

Caroline_a wrote: »

my dad actually loved the thought of company all the time or the option to go to his own suite and watch tv by himself.

Another part the problem I’m afraid. She doesn’t want the company or to ‘be surrounded by old people’. She has always refused to go to day centres or old peoples clubs/groups. She has hardly any friends left since she has now outlived them all. It’s her own choice, I’d hate someone to try and force me to join a club I didn’t want to go to!

Peater wrote: »

Don't underestimate how much of a burden it would be.

Oh we know all about it, having been through it with my Great Grandmother (Nanny). She couldn't ever be left alone, we used to take turns to go 'Nanny-sitting' so that my Granny could go out, or to do the shopping for them. The final straw I think came when Nanny convinced herself at about 3am that she had to escape from the house so - aged at least 100yrs, I can't remember exactly - she climbed out of her bedroom window and fell through the conservatory roof, but still managed to climb off it into the garden where she then couldn't get back into the house. Luckily the garden was secure because she had no idea where she was! If she'd got out the garden she'd have been gone, at 3am in just her nightie! After that Granny was too scared to sleep just in case. Nanny would regularly wake up in the middle of the night convinced it was morning and want her breakfast. She could not be persuaded otherwise and if Granny didn't go downstairs with her Nanny would start trying to cook, but would then forget she'd put something under the grill and fall asleep in a chair....

It was too much for one person to be awake and alert 24/7. It was a stressful time then, one we all remember.

My Granny is not like that, she is mentally alert just a tad forgetful which is normal at that age.

roddydogs wrote: »

Stating the obvious, but 24Hr live in "Care" will cost an absolute bomb, and no help if gran has more than £23,000.

Have you seen the cost of residential care then? At least with home care you're just paying for the person and the agency fees plus your normal bills. In a residential place you're also paying for accommodation and full board.

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

There may be a halfway house

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/diana-athill-move-old-peoples-home

Just a thought, but I think if your grandma does have some money to spend she could find somewhere that she could actually be happy rather than somewhere to merely exist.

That's what we're doing. She'll be happy if she can stay at home.

The other thing to be aware of is to try to have some of the discussions now whilst she is still able to communicate properly with you.

That's the point though, we know what she wants, discussions have been had. We know she wants to stay at home as long as possible, and for the moment we're trying to establish how possible that is. With the right level of care there's no reason why she should have to move into a residential facility. Forcing elderly people to move when they don't want to can be disastrous to their emotional and mental well being. I think that with home care, the only reson she would HAVE to move would be if she needed medical care which wasn't possible to give at home. Otherwise, there's no reason why she can't spend the rest of her days at home.

We have established that the family cannot provide the necessary level of care in the long term, hence me asking for advice on finding home care companies.

Thanks for the info and links. I didn’t get any free time at work today so will collate it all and speak to Mum tomorrow, then make some calls and get some quotes.

rachbc

Your gran sounds awesome! I don't have any info to add- my grandparents didn't live quite as long (90) and I was much younger than you are when they were old but they both had at home care until the end which was so important to them.

There_Goes_Trouble

Thank you Rachbc.

I am so lucky. I have the best family in the world and my Granny is so important to me. I know she won't be here forever so i want to try and help her stay as comfortable as possible, for as long as possible. Residential care will be a last resort when all other options are no longer viable, luckily she has got money to support herself so we do have options. She has done so much for me in the past, she deserves the best care we can arrange.

jewelly

Having a live in carer seems to be the best solution for your Granny. When I worked as a carer in the community, I sometimes 'doubled up' at a house where there was a live in carer. I was quite impressed with the care the person received, and how well it worked for them. The company they worked for was called Country Cousins. Might be worth a look.

If you are going to go down that route, I would suggest getting a commode next to the bed for Granny so she can safely toilet herself during the night. This would keep the charges lower as care duties during the night by staff would incur higher charges.

I hope that helps. Good luck.

Mojisola

jewelly wrote: »

The company they worked for was called Country Cousins.

It's good to hear of someone who has direct knowledge of a company. This was one I looked at but I found it harder to work out exactly how much it would cost so put them on the reserve pile. I'll have another look.

margaretclare

Sounds a bit like my Grandads. When both of them became ill one of them thought that he was in the navy still and someone was 'coming to get him' and one had alzheimers, the only stuff he did remember was all about the army! Songs and everything, but had no idea who we were. Makes you realise what a massive impact WW2 had on people of that age, and goodness knows what people of our age will be talking about in years to come.

I think all those who were adults then i.e. 10 years or so older than me, were greatly affected by the upheaval in all areas of everyone's life, what's called 'total war'. Not like earlier wars - if you read Jane Austen's novels you could be forgiven for thinking they weren't in a war situation and yet they were - the Napoleonic Wars lasted 20 years and we were threatened with invasion then! Rationing, food shortages, conscription not only of males but of single females, and the most important thing in WW2 was, they did NOT know the outcome. 'Dad's Army' is only a joke because the invasion did not happen and the Allies were victorious. It would have been a different story - those guys were in the front line and they knew it. It didn't really affect me all that much, I was a kid in primary school in the Yorkshire countryside, but it affected DH who was a Londoner, and my first husband who lived in Kent. That corner of England was very much affected and all ages were involved.

However, my understanding is that Alzheimer's doesn't quite work like that. It has been described to me as like a photograph album where all the pages are pulled out starting with the most recent and working back. So, sufferers forget more recent things/people/incidents first and remember further back. Your Grandads will have forgotten the last 60-70 years.

One of the survivors of the Rorke's Drift battle (remember the film 'Zulu'?) one of the VC winners, died in poverty screaming that the Zulus were coming.

margaretclare

Mojisola wrote: »

It's good to hear of someone who has direct knowledge of a company. This was one I looked at but I found it harder to work out exactly how much it would cost so put them on the reserve pile. I'll have another look.

Also look at ConsultUs. http://www.consultuscare.com/

antronella

We had 24 hour live in care for my mum.. for about10 months..till she sadly passed away last year. If your granny's wishes are to stay in her own home (as my mum wanted) of course you want to enable that to happen. it's lovely she has the support of all her family.. The company we went with was Helping Hands..and the amount mum was paying from her savings was approximately £700 per week.We also looked into night cover and day cover separately.. but it was actually cheaper to employ someone for 24 hours ( i.e it was £10 an hour overnight, before we even looked into day rates!). If you need any advice/support... feel free to PM me x ( Forgot to mention, the carer will need 2 hours off per day. We were able to cover this with family and friends, so mum was never on her own. )