Getting aunt into care home

Savvy_Sue

sortofwinning wrote: »

I'm not sure of what exactly the title of the specialist is, I only know her name.

<snip>

Dr N may be either a neurologist or maybe psychiatrist, I'm just not sure. She is a consultant of some sort.

I'd be surprised if searching the relevant hospital's website didn't give you an idea of her specialism. or just a google if it's not a common name.

sortofwinning

Mojisola wrote: »

Get your Mum to ask if your aunt can be seen by someone else for a second opinion.

Well that's what I've been nagging my mum to do. She may be coming around, I don't know. She's got a lot of problems of her own - osteoporosis, mobility problems, she's been very distressed by my mental health problems, plus her brother got his second leg amputated last year and she constantly worries about him cos he's had falls too - and she's 81 and I don't want to push her too hard. I mentioned in the earlier post that I wanted the family to pay for a private psychiatrist. I think that's the way to get the job done. If we wait for a second opinion from the NHS, we'll probably still be sitting here at Christmas.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I'd be surprised if searching the relevant hospital's website didn't give you an idea of her specialism. or just a google if it's not a common name.

Just tried googling her but am not pulling anything up, and I don't know which hospital she belongs to. I do know that she is sending out a nurse some time "in the new year" and we're at the 15th already and there's no mention of it. The nurse has to come out and see my aunt in her own home and report back. I fail to see how that's going to help anything. So I'm going to just keep on at my mum to try and get her diagnosed privately. I know the NHS has a lot of problems and all the rest, and most NHS workers are great, but this is really a major bloody failure.

Savvy_Sue

sortofwinning wrote: »

Just tried googling her but am not pulling anything up, and I don't know which hospital she belongs to.

Would she not show up at the hospital where your aunt sees her?

Mojisola

sortofwinning wrote: »

The nurse has to come out and see my aunt in her own home and report back. I fail to see how that's going to help anything.

When my Mum was going through the process, she was tested with the Mini Mental State Examination by the GP (after about 18 months of me asking - Mum could look very together for the duration of a GP's appointment), referred on because her results were poor, assessed further by a Memory Clinic nurse and then had her brain scanned.

After that, the consultant and nurse visited Mum at home to see how she functioned in her own environment and to explain the results of all the testing.

Mum responded to the drugs that are available - several of the worse symptoms disappeared completely. I'm sure they made the difference between her being able to stay at home with Dad and outside support and going into a home.

She had regular appointments at the Memory Clinic where they checked how things were going on, gave advice about managing symptoms and recorded her decline through the MMSE.

elsien

I don't see that having the label is going to make much difference in itself. Especially as regardless of what you think needs to happen, your mum appears reluctant to make any changes.
So you really have two issues - firstly you need an up-to-date assessment of your aunts support needs, especially if she's needing more help. Someone must have carried out an assessment for the current visits to have been put in place. So go back to them and say it's not enough. And specify why.
Secondly (and this is where you might struggle if your mum feels an obligation ) you and mum need to stop filling in the gaps in services. As long as you are supporting her to stay at home, the statutory services will carry on allowing you to do so. So perhaps you and mum need to have a conversation about what you are both willing and able to carry on doing. But mum may not feel able to step back, which won't leave you any further forward.

Aunt does not need to be sectioned to move into a home, but if she didn't want to go it would firstly need to be clearly demonstrated that she lacked the capacity to understand and weigh up all the relevant factors - pros and cons, risks etc. Whether she has the label or not is largely irrelevant as people with dementia can still have capacity to make decisions. Then it would have to be demonstrated that any move was in her best interests, and any psychological effects of being forced to move would be part of that. It really isn't as simplistic as aunt has dementia so she'll have to go into care.

It's very hard to stop providing support to someone you love and don't want to see come to harm. Mum may not yet have reached that point.

I'm presuming there's no power of attorney in place?

elsien

Also wanted to say, has aunt had a care assessment from social services? Because if not, that would be your next step.

teddysmum

As I've mentioned above, my dad had dementia, luckily not for a long time and had some issues like the lady mentioned by the OP.


He would insist that a child played in the car my husband kept on his drive, yet it was impossible to enter the car with the battery unconnected. He also insisted that 'disgusting' undertakers buried people in the grass verges of his street and that a bus stopped by his gas fire. He'd get quite nasty if you disagreed.


He turned from a gentle man who abhorred swearing to a man who swore profusely and tried to bite both my sister and myself. He'd throwing himself on the floor and refuse to get up (difficult, yes, because of his Parkinson's , but we couldn't lift him ourselves, especially with the risk of being bitten) , yet as he refused, it took the gas danger to have him sectioned and admitted to hospital then residential care.

FrugalinShropshire

Does your Aunt own her own home and live on her own? If so then this would most likely need to be sold to fund a care home. She would need to be assessed by a social worker if she is not self funding. If she is self funding it would be a matter of looking for suitable homes for her. Even with a diagnosis of Dementia she would still have to self fund if she owned her own home. The cost would depend on whether she was assesed to need Personal or Nursing care. Is she in receipt of Attendance Allowance too? It sounds like she has a care package in place so getting in touch with her social worker would be a good step and asking for a new assesment of her needs.

PasturesNew

We tried to get mum diagnosed, it's not straight forward. From memory I think it was: speak to the social worker ... and ask them for the community psychiatric nurse to do an assessment. Eventually the psychiatric nurse phones you up and books an appointment.

At this stage the process was stopped as mum'd managed to time travel back to 1983 and end up in the middle of the road, then in hospital ... and from there directly into a care home.

The problem with dementia comes when they think it's 30-40 years ago and they pop out to do whatever it was they thought they were doing ... 3am in the morning and they're picking the kids up from school.