Care Homes Necessary Or Evil?

Jagraf

Mojisola wrote: »

If your parents do end up needing care, you have to do what's right for them, not what makes you feel good.

I've seen older people kept at home by their children, miserable and lonely and hating to have to ask their children for help who would have been much happier and better cared for in a home but their children didn't want people to think badly of them.

This is true - somehow when relatives get old some children think its ok to treat them like kids themselves.

Person_one

If my parents ever end up needing care, I'm quite likely to be in my late sixties or seventies when they do. I think it's very unlikely that I'd be the best person for the job!

Pollycat

My Mum's already stated that she wants to go into the same care home as Dad was in when 'it's time'.

tea_lover

My Grandad was in an ok home. It wasn't marvellous, but it really wasn't awful. The staff were on the whole lovely, and did a good job.

He was there for just under 2 years, and was already 91 when he moved in. My mum (his only child) was in her 60s and is disabled herself, my dad (his SIL) is my mum's full-time carer and has his own health problems.

He had 2 grandchildren (me and my sister) who both work full-time.

We're a very close family (geographically and emotionally) and did what we could when he was at home but there was no way we could provide the 24hr care he needed towards the end.

The one thing I always found sad was the signing in book when we visited. I visited him 2-3 times a week, and one of us visited him pretty much every day. Quite often we'd go to sign in and the last name above was one of our family from the previous day (if that makes sense). So many people just had no one ever coming to see them.

Mojisola

tea_lover wrote: »

The one thing I always found sad was the signing in book when we visited. I visited him 2-3 times a week, and one of us visited him pretty much every day. Quite often we'd go to sign in and the last name above was one of our family from the previous day (if that makes sense). So many people just had no one ever coming to see them.

It is sad - one of the men in Dad's group had one visit a year from a nephew for just an hour or so.

Unless we had anything personal to discuss with Dad, we usually sat in the sitting room with the other residents so we got to know them quite well and our visits to Dad were visits to them as well.

Newly_retired

My mum, who lived to 92, told me that if dad died first, she wanted to go into a care home.
He did die first, and she was happy to go into a home. She had six months of company, no worries about where the next meal was coming from, no housework to do, outings, entertainment etc. Ok, so it wasn't perfect, she had some grumbles about the food and clothes getting muddled up, but overall she was happy and had a new lease of life, until a short illness took her.
There is no way a one in the family could have looked after her for a variety of reasons, but she certainly made it easier for us by telling us in advance that she wanted to go into a home.

DevilsAdvocate1

My mum always said she wanted to go into a home as she didn't want to be a burden. But now she is 85 and needing more help, she's changed her mind!

I've visited many homes when I've been working and I've only found one I'd be happy for my family members to live in. In most of the homes the people look absent. I often wonder if they are drugged up.

jrtfan

Raine_E_Day wrote: »

I cared for my mother, who had dementia, from a distance of 14 miles. I live in a one bedroom 3rd floor flat so could not have her here. She had severe arthritis also and could barely walk. She refused to move from her one bedroom home and was in complete denial about her diagnosis. She was a nightmare – phoning everyone at unsocial hours - sometimes I would receive ten calls after midnight, with her never remembering she had previously phoned. It was not just to me either, but the newsagent, her chiropodist, pizza delivery (she saw the number on a flyer), and she would reply to junk mail and any charity going, spending regularly over £500 a month on same. She thought I was still at school. In the end, my brother and I persuaded her by stealth to move into a home – on pretext of it being a holiday break in a hotel for Christmas. The home had said they could cope with her and I'd visited many before deciding on this one which had a homely and caring feel. However, even though they were listed as 'dementia carers', they decided after three months they could not cope with her. She was violent. I was told I had to remove her 'forthwith' with no notice. Social Servies (who were part funding) could only suggest two others which had vacancies. One was horrendous and the other so modern it was more like a hotel. I chose the latter. Mum actually spent only three nights there as every time she 'kicked off', they immediately sent her to hospital. She was charged for the six weeks she never spent there (£3000+) before she died a horrid slow, drugged death in hospital. I sat with her solidly for 3 weeks only returning home for 5 hours per night, but was not there at the end, although it would have made no difference to her.

I would never want to submit my children to having to go through what I did, - but what is the alternative? To live with family with above condition would be impossible, especially with young children and full time working parents. Unless you are very wealthy and can afford full-time live in care in your own home, a care home has to be a necessity, 'evil' or not. I think the OP's wording of 'evil' must be because this option is not ideal, and is not what one would choose if wealthy enough. Few, however, are in this positon.

My heart goes out to you because my mum was doing this sort of thing too, towards the end of her life. I'd been intercepting her mail for a while by then and disposing of any junk stuff or charity appeals, before she could see them.

With the night-time telephone calls, if ever I didn't answer my phone then mum just called out the emergency services instead. It was quite usual to be woken at 3am by the police knocking on my door to say they'd attended mum's home as an emergency after receiving a call about intruders being on the premises. There never were, of course.

Some of mum's delusions became downright dangerous - for instance, she started pouring liquid into the electrical sockets after she became convinced that her picture was being broadcast on the TV and that people were using the TV as a means to spy on her.



Mum had told me many times over the years that she definitely did not want to be 'put into an old-people's home' and that she expected me to nurse her at the end of her life. She'd done it for her mother and for my dad, but both had suffered from a terminal illness and it had been obvious that they had only a few weeks left to live. I think mum had anticipated it being the same way when her time came.

She'd had 3 degenerative conditions for a while and had been housebound for a good couple of years, but we'd been managing just fine with her living in her own home until the dementia really kicked in.

Mum wasn't a mixer, she very much craved her own privacy and I suspect that pre-dementia, going into a home where she would have been pressed to spend the day mingling in the residents' lounge would have finished her off there and then. If she'd had nobody else to help her though then eventually, she'd have had no other choice so a care home would have been necessary (and 'evil' from her perspective).

No two sets of circumstances are the same however.

pollypenny

After my mother died, my father broke his hip and he went into a residential home.

We considered bringing him to live with us, but he'd have been stuck here all day on his own. He had company, entertainment and great staff in the home.

jrtfan

A couple of years before the dementia arrived, mum had a few weeks of 'rehabilitation' care in a local Council-run care home (which has since closed, more's the pity). She wasn't very happy there, needless to say, but to me the place seemed fantastic. The staff were second to none, attentive and genuinely caring people. All of the residents seemed extremely happy there. It was clean, comfortable, very bright, well-furnished. There was a huge lounge but it was divided into little sections by the clever use of furniture. Some sections had TVs, others had little tables and board games, others were reading corners. There was one massive table in the room and some people sat here doing puzzles or doing crafts or whatever took their fancy. All of the residents ate together in the (beautiful) dining room. There was no pressure on anybody to do anything unless they wanted to, and no set visiting times either - we were even able to take her dog along there for a visit.

I do wonder, had this place remained open, whether mum could have been found a place there and if she would have come to like it after a while. As you say, given a choice of sitting at home alone or being somewhere with no pressure like this home, it does seem like a no-brainer.