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  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by skot View Post
    Thanks BobL for bringing up this subject...in comparison to other experiences here, I am only at the start of my Mum's journey. She is 88, lives alone and can still take care of herself but the signs have been there for about a year now.

    Repeating the same story over and over within a half hour visit, confusion when paying bills and phone calls with her feeling sad and lonely (I visit her every day as I only live 2 minutes away). I know it is a one way trip and it will only get worse but my sister and I have the attitude that one small step at a time may be best.

    She talks about being a burden to me but that is not the case, whatever she wants is OK with me. After several times of attempting phone banking and messing it up, she rings me in tears and tells me she has stuffed and up.
    Hi skot
    unfortunately your mum sounds like one of those folk the scum bags out there target with their "I'm from Centrelink/ATO/etc and you owe money." scams.
    Please protect her assest.
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

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  3. #47
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    Jul 2003
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    Riverhills, Brisbane
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    ian, I do discuss that with her and at the moment she seems to understand that they are scams BUT I am constantly instilling into her to just hang up OR say "My son handles that..you will have to talk to him".

    At the moment I am taking away the confusion for her in paying her bills and am hoping that less confusion may lead to her staying alert for a little longer. She was originally concerned about losing control but she was happy to know that she still has control of her finances and can do all the things she does now with her assets....I am only there to do the internet transactions for her bills.

  4. #48
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    Feb 2006
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    The whole finances, loss of numeracy and general memory loss is interesting.

    Dad always did the finances and the shopping, or mum and dad did the shopping together. When dad passed away ~20 years ago mum was nervous about all that stuff but she did eventually do the shopping by herself and do banking and pay bills eg at the post office in cash, others with the help of my sister. I think she felt some pride in gaining some levels of independence. But about 5 years ago mum started to get anxious about banking and paying bills so my sister took this over. We setup mum's EPA back in 2003 so this made things a lot easier.

    Then about 3 years ago it became apparent that mum needed help with shopping because she started losing numeracy. At the check out mum would just hand over her biggest bank note and hope it was enough. To our knowledge she was never diddled but then again how would we know?

    To continue to give mum some independence my sister would take mum to the supermarket and leave mum alone in the store to select her items and then my sister would meet mum at the checkout to help with the payment. At that point mum had been going to the same grocery store for 24 years but she started to forget where things were located and often could just not see them so repeatedly went past the item she wanted. Her grocery shopping times doubled and then tripled, she often selected the wrong items, and her success rate at finding the items on her list dropped. Other number comparisons also became confusing, eg, could not tell the difference between 375g and 500g.

    Interestingly much can still tell the the on an analog watch with no numbers but not so easily on a digital watch.

    Mum still occasionally accompanies my sister to the supermarket but no longer selects many groceries from shelves. Recently mum was along side my sister in the supermarket and 10 seconds later she was gone, mum had just turned the other way at the previous aisle junction. When my sister found her, mum was shaking from the fear of possibly being lost and not knowing which way to turn.

    As far as telephone calls go mum stopped answering the phone a few years back when she was still living on her own, also she would rarely call anyone. We set her phone up for speed dial but that didn't help at all. This was difficult because we could not ring to check on how she was. The only times she rang another sister was when mum thought someone had stolen something.

    Meanwhile mum was doing her own garden with the 1000+ pot plants and 80 m of garden beds in her own unit, as well as the common garden for the other 8 units where she lived. She was quite amazing given she was 89. OTOH mum ran up massive water bills and slipped over several times on wet food paths and tiled surfaces, not surprising given her fave gardening footwear in summer is thongs. Then mum started leaving the gas stove on, left the storage gas hot water unit running for 3 days, and also locked herself out of her unit several times once on a cold night she locked herself in her own back yard and luckily a neighbour was home and out the back of their pace and heard mum calling out. All this is why we got mum to move to my sisters place about 18 months ago. Mum was most unhappy about this as she thought she was getting on just fine at her unit.

    It would not have mattered which of the siblings mum moved in with it would all have lead to the same level of unhappiness and paranoia. Mum has no friends, few acquaintances, is frugal, has uber-conservative 1950's values, and rarely ever leaves her place for "fun", not quite a recluse but almost there eg she won't even visit a sister that lives only 3 hours away by car even though that sister just had major hip operation and she would be transported there in my sisters luxury mercedes 4WD. This would not be that much of an issue if mum kept her own opinions to herself about all this but mum resents anyone else having any other views or mode of living and is quite forceful about telling everyone about it over and over again.

    In contrast my carer sister has heaps of friends, is widely involved in the community and likes to party.
    My sisters tells mum 3-4 times that she is going out and when she will be back, sister even writes it all down in large print on two white boards but mum forgets and thinks the daughter has gone off again without telling mum where she is going - dumped again. This almost always results in arguments and agro, not to mention that mum thinks that anything my sister does is all OTT and a waste of money and is not shy to inform the sibling about it. I suspect that much of this is related to mums internal justification of her own frugal lifestyle which together with her memory loss feeds the paranoia that someone might steal her stuff.

  5. #49
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    Bobl,

    Some of those things resonate with my experiences...especially the numeracy and always handing over larger notes instead of trying to work out if she has the correct money in smaller notes & coins....when she takes out a handful of coins, she seems to go blank.

    I mentioned this to my mum last week and she hadn't realised.

    In respect to your sister, she needs to look after herself as well. I know it is hard but she can not let your mum's mental health impact on her own. This is something that the whole family has to help with as I am sure you already know.

  6. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by skot View Post
    In respect to your sister, she needs to look after herself as well. I know it is hard but she can not let your mum's mental health impact on her own. This is something that the whole family has to help with as I am sure you already know.
    Yep we are onto it.

    Mum especially came from the uber conservative "19th century" school of though that has at least one of HER daughters (as she called them) sacrificing themselves to be at the beck and call of her in her dotage. This expectation mellowed in middle age although it was referred to from time to time when future possibilities were discussed. This expectation appears to have returned strongly as mum's memory fades.

    The other "school of thought" which was applied for a while by both mum and dad, from when I first started part time work @ ~13 till when I was about 18, was whatever you earned you gave the lot to your parents and they gave you some small amount of pocket money in return. In truth the family needed the money and I didn't really mind doing it because they we were skint, but I could not help thinking that we were just slaves to the family situation. Mum's (and Dad's) expectation was that all the kids would continue for their whole lives to revolve like planets around the parental sun and continued to take their word on anything they said as gospel. You were supposed to stay at home till you got married and then not move too far away ie stay in the same area. This was shattered when I finished uni and I applied for and got a job in the country. My carer sister left home and moved in some girlfriends as did another sister. Then my brother moved to Melbourne, one move to Port Hedland and I and my whole family moved to the USA as did another brother and one moved to the middle east.

    My elderly uncles on my mum's side in Europe still try to boss me around (tell me where and when I should go and what I should and shouldn't do) when I visit them and is one reason why I don't go and visit them much. OTOH Dad's brothers are much less conservative and more educated and much more pleasant to deal with. They are far less conservative than my father ever was. This is a common thing with elderly migrants holding onto 50+ year old traditions and ideas whereas back in the old country things have move on. When my dad did eventually go back to visit his folks he was disgusted at how his family had lost many of their old traditions and came back to Australia early and said he would never visit them again - but he did, and every time came back with a sad face - it had all changed for the worst. Of course you couldn't tell him that things change, by then he'd become too rigid and set in his ways.

    Again the expectation that parents retain control throughout their kids lives faded a little as both my parents sort of "got with it" for a while in the 80's and 90's, but in the case of mum this too has returned in a very strong way. It's really hard for mum to understand this ain't happening and I have given up thinking she can understand.

  7. #51
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    I guess we were fortunate in that way...both my Dad & Mum were keen on us to be independent, they knew we loved them but wanted us to go out and learn more about the world (maybe they just want some alone time).

    Dad passed away nearly 12 years ago and I think I have become more protective of my mum since then. Her loss of mental capabilities is difficult to accept knowing how independent she was even after Dad's passing.

    Hope you can find a way through it and I know it would be hard but do not take your mum's anger towards yourself & the family personally or to heart....it is part of the progression. My sister told me the other day that when Mum repeats herself, she points it out to her...but I recommended that you let it pass. Reminding your mum of the memory problem will only upset her further and in turn bring about more anger from her.

  8. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by skot View Post
    My sister told me the other day that when Mum repeats herself, she points it out to her...but I recommended that you let it pass. Reminding your mum of the memory problem will only upset her further and in turn bring about more anger from her.
    Yep, the anger also comes about partly from thinking we are dismissing her story/thoughts etc by reminding them that she has already told us the story.

    The idea of instilling independence is most worthy and one I have tried to practice with my son.

    Mum's side of the family came from the school that no one was ever educated enough, safe enough, or wise enough to hold an independent view unless they were the head of the household. This was typically the grandfather of the family and when he died somehow this wisdom got magically handed down down to the next oldest male or female if no male was available. Dad initially had the same view but was also more rational so it was possible to reason him out of his own decisions - but you had to have a very solid case. Dad suffered quite severe depression for about 7 years and withdrew from much of family life and this left mum in art of charge - this was hard on her too.

  9. #53
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    It is strange how some things stick in their memory while others fritter away. When I was organising the NBN to be installed into her Unit in September last year, I told her to keep her mobile phone charged during the installation as she would lose her landline for a couple of days while they migrated her phone no from Telstra over to the new ISP. I have lost count the number of times that she has asked me how long she should keep her mobile plugged in and charging...I just say that it's OK to unplug it until the battery gets flat. Next time I visit, I get the same question.

  10. #54
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    Today started out pretty awful. Sister #2 went over to help carer sister and mum to pack for the move. Mum chucked a complete wobbly and ranted and raved for an hour. My sisters said nothing and sister #2 eventually went home. Carer sisters #3 son (mums grandson he's about 25 years old and super mellow and thoughtful) called mum to have lunch and she came to the table grabbed sandwich and went and sat by herself on the balcony. Grandson just went and sat next to mum and said very little - what a champ. Mum then had a nap and when she woke up she started pulling a few things out of her cupboards. Sister 32 came back and and by the end of the afternoon they had more or less packed certainly enough for a few weeks.

  11. #55
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    Bob

    I haven't contributed yet because I have two elderly relos to deal with at the moment - the FIL and my Mum.

    Two totally different situations -
    Mum has almost all her marbles (in other words, she's no worse than she was when Dad dies, 18 years ago), lives on her own in the marital home and still spends most of her time looking after the garden and taking women younger than her to the shops and helping with community lunches etc that the local church runs to look after the more unfortunate in the area (all of them younger than Mum!). The only problem is I'm the only relative in Australia able to help her - my only sibling, my sister, lives in Italy with her husband and daughter and Mum flies over there every year to visit, but there's some huge guilt on my sis's part that she can't help Mum every day.
    FIL still has most of his marbles, but Parkinson's and some other issues mean that he's basically a full time care job - he still has his wife (he's 86 and she will turn 88 this year) and there are 4 kids who live within 10 km who all help out (including my wife).

    Mum is much easier to deal with than FIL (although FIL did give me all his turning tools!)

    My experience is that the real difference is the underlying attitude to death. Mum has no fear of it - whether it's faith or something else, I don't know. She just isn't worried by it - what she says is " I want to stay around and see my grandkids grow up but only as long as they can look at me with love and pride and not pity. She's beaten off one cancer operation but she says now that she isn't going to lightly allow the doctors to open her up again.

    FIL is frightened, I think. I don't know why, but he just doesn't seem able to look death straight in the eye. It makes it much harder for SWMBO and her siblings to deal with him. Soon they will have to face the fact that MIL can't look after him and that a nursing home is the only alternative. But I can't say that.....

    Best of luck to all of us dealing with this issue.
    Cheers

    Jeremy
    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly

  12. #56
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    They are all so similar - yet so different.
    I got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.

  13. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by doug3030 View Post
    They are all so similar - yet so different.
    Unfortunately, the outcomes will all be pretty much the same.

    At least, all the responses have shown that they care for their respective relative. There are many out there where the younger relies could not give a damn.
    Tom

    "It's good enough" is low aim

  14. #58
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    We moved mum this morning with no dramas.

    We packed most of mums stuff into my van, and my brother and nephew and mum followed in bros car.
    All very amicable no harsh words etc

    We arrived at the aged care facility and sat mum down in an easy chair and within 10 minutes had all her stuff in her room.

    Then two sisters turned up to help mum unpack.

    The "care pack" was well received and there were places and shelves in mum's room for all the nicknacks, pictures and photos mum had packed, plus there is still room for quite a few more.

    Mum was thrilled to find how she has more room and space than she thought she would have, there are still 3 empty drawers so she can bring more stuff into her room.

    We all then had lunch in teh centre dining room with mum, and the sisters stayed behind to finalise unpacking.

    I'd say we got this far pretty lightly.

    The nephew was fantastic with his Nonna, jollying her along if she started to flag or retreat into herself, and really made a difference.

  15. #59
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    Glad to hear it all went off without too much fuss mate, the nephew sounds like a good sort. Fingers crossed she settles in well!

  16. #60
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    Hopefully, you, and your siblings can sleep a bit easier at night and relax a little bit during the day.
    It is not always easy to put a loved one into care, but it is a much for their health and well being as well as their relatives who have been caring for them.

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