I am full time carer for my elderly mother who has vascular dementia, advanced parkinsons and other age related illnesses. At the beginning of this week my aunt, Mother’s very dear friend and sister-in-law of 65 years passed away after multiple heart attacks. Having got over the shock, I then had to tell Mother, her understanding is not good these days along with her short term memory so was not sure what to expect from her. I told her as gently as I could that my aunt had passed away at home in her sleep, not the truth but feel that Mother would not be able to understand all the ins and outs of the situation. Mother was very shocked for a little while and we spoke about my aunt, she had been over to visit us some 5 weeks earlier with my cousin, and after a little while Mother seemed Ok with the news. I stayed close incase she needed me but since then she has not mentioned my aunt or anything about her death at all, so I have not brought up the subject again.
So, my question is do I leave it as it is and say nothing as I do not want to upset Mother? Obviously Mother will not be attending the funeral and will be at daycare on the day so will not know anything about it. Thank you for reading this.
Unless she brings the subject up (as in “I haven’t seen my sister-in-law for awhile, where is she ?”) I’d be inclined not to mention it again.
My Mum had Alzheimer’s and she was always asking where her sisters, parents and my Dad where - they had all died many, many years previously. It upset her greatly if we said they had passed away as she couldn’t remember their passing or going to their funerals - in the end we would just say they were on holiday/at work/shopping which satisfied her.
Leave it, and make excuses if she says “I haven’t seen X lattely”.
Other people here have mentioned a book called something like “Contented Dementia”, might be worth a read?
Is mum claiming Attendance Allowance? Exemption from Council Tax due to “severe mental impairment” - this is backdateable to the date of diagnosis! Fairlyl easy to claim too.
Have Social Services done a Carers Assessment for you, to see if there is anything they can do to help you?
Thank you all for your advice, I will not mention it again to her unless she says something about it.
BB - Mum gets Attendance Allowance, I have not yet thought about the council tax issue so will pursue that.
The council came to do a carers assessment for me, but once they found that she was a self funder, told me to phone around the care agencies and nursing homes as the officer had to do and that was that! Not impressed at all but have found that self funders carers are treated as such and get very little advice and support from the councils.
Lesley, whether or not mum is a self funder should be irrelevant to you and your Carers Assessment.
Complain and ask for someone to do it again. Have a look at the Care Act Satutory Guidance, online, for information.
If you click on “Quick Links” top left, a dropdown menu appears. Go to the main site and look for details of what a Carers Assessment should involve.
Have you sorted out mum’s financial management, do you have Power of Atttorney? Are you her DWP Appointee?