Problems agreeing on care for elderly mother

Dunroamin

SuzieSue wrote: »

No amount of inheritance is worth the stress the OP is going through at the moment. I know because I've been there. I would advise the OP to put herself and her children first. Her mother should not expect the OP to give up her life for what could be several years.

Looking after her mother for some weekends, when there's a husband at home, is hardly expecting her to put her own life on hold for several years.

ognum

It's a shame the OP hasn't posted back!

troubleinparadise

Unfortunately the mother with dementia is only going to decline, and the demands will become greater on both daughters.

This may go on for many months or years, it won't be only a few weeks unless there is a crisis that precipitates the mother going into hospital or secure care.

Already the situation is unmanageable, and the weekly resident carer sister is going to have carer breakdown; the weekend carer sister (OP) risks the breakdown of her marriage and family set-up.

There is also a time in caring when you should say you cannot maintain the situation as it is because of the toll it is taking. Whilst the mother may not want outside carers, unfortunately sometimes those wants have to be overridden to get her the care she needs.

The mother needs to be cared for, but the adult children don't have to do the caring - and indeed here, both are saying they cannot. Enough is enough - contact Social Services and tell them about it.

As has already been suggested, the Alzheimer's Society have an excellent website and forum, and a helpline to give phone advice. Don't leave it to become a crisis for all concerned.

Lara44

What do you actually do to help at the moment OP? If it's nothing at all, then I can understand why your sister is upset. She may feel that she is taking responsibility for everything, and you nothing. Of course you are under no obligation to help. If you don't want to get involved, the issue will be communicating your limits to your sister. Or, there may be scope for a compromise to be ironed out between you?

It is very problematic to move someone with Alzheimer's in and out of different situations. If you are going to take care of your Mum you need to put this consideration first. It would be a real shame if respite care with you were to impact your Mother's health for the worse overall. Can you make a list of things you would be happy to do for your sister? Perhaps some batch cooking, cleaning, staying over one night per week rather than one weekend?

Ultimately I think you will need to transition in some paid care arrangement. Perhaps your sister is at her wits end and would benefit from you taking this on. You could get the carers to come around while you visit and start very gradually building it into a routine. Hopefully you would be in the position to hire one carer so your Mum could get to know and trust that person. There seem to be few alternatives and you may have to just run with it and make the best of the situation.

It would be great to get to a place where you and your sister could communicate well. Try to really listen and empathise with her, and treat her with compassion. Yes, she chose to give up her job, but that is something that is giving your Mum a good quality of life now. You might find that she calms down if you really acknowledge her situation. Let her know that you have your own caring responsibilities looking after your children so there are limits to what you can do. If you don't want to contribute at all then you will have to let her know that, and it may change your relationship. But that's the only way that she will stop asking you for help. Ask your OH to step up and support you too. Nobody chooses to have ageing and unwell parents and he should be helping you out as much as he can.

rpc

Dunroamin wrote:

If he's coming home in the early hours he presumably goes to bed when he comes in and gets up with the children.

Dunroamin wrote: »

Looking after her mother for some weekends, when there's a husband at home, is hardly expecting her to put her own life on hold for several years.

Have you ever worked night shifts? You don't seem to have a very good grasp of how night shifts totally screw people up.

You can't survive on next to no sleep (getting up with the children) and your body clock at weekends is totally out of sync with reality.

securityguy

Lara44 wrote: »

What do you actually do to help at the moment OP? If it's nothing at all, then I can understand why your sister is upset. She may feel that she is taking responsibility for everything, and you nothing.

The OP's original plan involved paid care, by implication quite a lot of it. The sister at that point enabled the mother's distaste for this, and gave up her job. It strikes me that the OP's original plan was perfectly sound, and the sister, having made her bed, is finding it's not as comfortable as she thought. The claim that "she chose to give up her job, but that is something that is giving your Mum a good quality of life now" may or may not be the case: it's possible that the sister, at her wits' end, is doing a substantially worse job than paid carers would, we don't know. It sounds like the sister (who, not having children, perhaps had a somewhat naive view of what caring for people who are completely dependent involves) thought that it would all be great, but reality is now biting.

"Ask your OH to step up and support you too. Nobody chooses to have ageing and unwell parents and he should be helping you out as much as he can."

Perhaps. He may, of course, have already said "let's just pay someone". He may have elderly parents of his own, or just have finished dealing with them, or be about to, or any number of other issues. Someone who works nights is in a very bad position to help, anyway.

Volunteering to be primary carer for someone with dementia is a massive step, but one which gives you the moral high ground. That doesn't mean that everyone else has to fall over themselves to join in. The situation needs paid carers, because if (for example) the sister falls ill there is a sudden, massive problem that no amount of good intentions can fix. The current situation is not sustainable. That needs to be fixed.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

rpc wrote: »

Have you ever worked night shifts? You don't seem to have a very good grasp of how night shifts totally screw people up.

You can't survive on next to no sleep (getting up with the children) and your body clock at weekends is totally out of sync with reality.

I have. You go to bed as soon as possible when you get in, get some sleep, then you get up and look after your own children.

It's no different from going to bed and getting up early during the week, then staying up late on Friday and Saturday night, as a good half of the population does every weekend.

Mojisola

oicu812 wrote: »

My original plan to help involved myself and private carers popping in at intervals during the day.

My sister then announced that she would give up her job (she is unmarried with no children) and move in with our mother and be her carer. She assured me that she was happy to do this.

I live nearby with my husband and four children. We both work and are already struggling to cope with the demands on our time. I work school hours, then do 2-3 hours from home in the evenings.

My husband and I have precarious jobs, do not get sick pay and have trouble getting holiday at short notice. I am sick with worry as my sister's demands are increasing.

It doesn't matter how manageable some people may think that caring for Mum every other weekend would be - if oicu812 and her husband feel they can't cope with caring as well as working and looking after their children, no-one should be guilt-tripping them into trying to do so.

There are lots of other options and oicu812 needs to stand firm.

Gleek

Primrose wrote: »

I desperately feel for you, having walked a not dissimilar path in the past. But it is clear that your health, your family's and your sister's well being cannot continue much longer along this route. Dementia is desperately sad both for the sufferer and their relatives but your mother's condition cannot continue to hold you all hostage to fortune much longer. Get your GP,s assistance to get Social services involved in a full assessment of her condition And needs. If full time live in carers are affordable, go for it. Otherwise you may have to accept your mother will have to go into care. This could be mitigated by her perhaps spending the odd few days in your house. But please do have courage to grasp this uncomfortable nettle before you find yourself heading for depression or a breakdown. Sometimes the line is a very thin one in these situations. You all seem to have done all you canto help your mother stay in her own home but if family relations are breaking down a care home may be the best answer.

Cannot agree enough!!! Our situation was slightly different, but we can totally understand the pure stress and upset it causes.

We (mum and I) were carers for 17 years for my grandad, 8 years it became bad, 5 years it was awful - and the last 3 were unbearable (just before he was finally diagnosed with dementia. For the final year of him being at home we had carers in four times a day (but they wouldn't cover night when most of the accidents/falls happened) and we filled in nights and during the days and all sorts.

He's been in a care home for a year now (a year since 27th April) and he was made permanent after a long hard battle with Social Services on the 7th August. He's happier than he's ever been, constant staff around though he avoids the residents (he's not a nice man tbf, never has been. Lots of domestic violence towards my gran, mum and me - the dementia just made it worse but that's a whole other story).

We made ourselves ill with the stress and all the problems and we're still recovering, but it truly was the best move for all three of us.


(On a practical note, if you're able to get Lasting Power Of Attorney for your mum whilst she's with it enough to do it - I cannot recommend it enough. Made our job a hell of a lot easier when we were sorting everything out for him. There's 2 lots, property and finance and health and welfare - we have both.)

Dunroamin

rpc wrote: »

Have you ever worked night shifts? You don't seem to have a very good grasp of how night shifts totally screw people up.

You can't survive on next to no sleep (getting up with the children) and your body clock at weekends is totally out of sync with reality.

As it happens, I have (although not for many years).

If he comes in at, say, 0200 and gets up at 0700, that's 5 hours' sleep; many people manage on that all the time, not just for 2 days a fortnight, which is all he would need to do.