Very Elderly neighbours not helped by family.

It is just so hard and I feel for all of you. I had about 10 years of this, dad complaining he was a full time carer, but never accepting outside help. I had to give up my full time job to be able to jump on a plane on a regular basis to pick up the pieces. In the end, I retired completely and moved countries as it was just impossible to deal with from afar. Very very hard.

However, dad still drove, cycled, and got onto the roof to clear snow- well into his 90s- and ...

hugs

Here here SueEH my own experiences with my parents and dh’s parents were/are very similar. Thankfully MIL whilst stubborn has allowed a cleaner, but won’t allow a care line alarm. I really do worry about her falling as her bedroom and bathroom are upstairs, and she won’t have a chairlift installed as they are for ‘old people’. She is in her 90’s too. ?
To add to Sue’s experience, my mil is impatient. If I’m at work or dh not at home when she calls for an non urgent errand, if we don’t come immediately (ie come after work/social commitment) she will rope a neighbour in to do it first.

It very tough. My parents were mid nineties (mum died before Xmas) and I live 100 miles away. Dad complained bitterly that he was a full time carer - which was true. Towards the end mum had dementia, was incontinent and hardly mobile.
A lovely neighbour volunteered to be on call and he certainly did scoop mum off the floor several times when she had crumpled but wasn’t injured.
I insisted that they had a careline alarm, which they did under great sufferance, but when I arranged a carer for one hour a morning to help mum get up and shower dad cancelled it before they had ever even been.
So to outsiders it maybe looked like they were on their own and no one cared but believe me I was banging my head against a brick wall out of sheer frustration. They refused to activate the POA (and dad is still refusing) so I was limited to only doing things they agreed with.

My 89 year old mother lives in Norfolk over 400 miles from me. it was my parents choice to move to Norfolk from Scotland in their 70's dad is now dead, she is on her own in her own home and is reliant on very nice neighbours. If they move away she may not be so lucky, I can't get to her without a 10/11 hour journey.

As others have said its really important to establish the facts as regards family ability/willingness to help, as often it is not practical for family to be on call 24/7. Equally it's important not take on responsibilities for neighbours beyond what is neighbourly. In an emergency call the relevent emergency services to help.

The local council may offer 24/7 emergency response alarm service available as well , which is normally a device worn around the neck to summons help. It's not free but is a monthly cost starting from around £13 a month depending on the service level required..

TanaMa

I live alone, fairly isolated, adult daughter and granddaughter live about 15 mins away. I am considering getting a personal alarm in case I have an accident/am unwell as, unless they want something, I rarely see or hear from them. Fortunately I have a friend that I message before 9 a.m. each morning - if they don't hear from me, they ring me and if no answer will get in touch with the Police to investigate. My nearest neighbour, about half a mile away, has said I should ring her if I need help and does ring me to check I am OK. Luckily, in my 87th year, I am fit and healthy but accidents do happen.

... get that personal alarm!

My partner and I have one - we are both disabled to some extent.

Having that pendant around your neck is very reassuring. We have to test it every month, and the response is immediate! You will feel much more confident when you get it.

I live alone, fairly isolated, adult daughter and granddaughter live about 15 mins away. I am considering getting a personal alarm in case I have an accident/am unwell as, unless they want something, I rarely see or hear from them. Fortunately I have a friend that I message before 9 a.m. each morning - if they don't hear from me, they ring me and if no answer will get in touch with the Police to investigate. My nearest neighbour, about half a mile away, has said I should ring her if I need help and does ring me to check I am OK. Luckily, in my 87th year, I am fit and healthy but accidents do happen.

My late mother had a pendant alarm which she wore, however she had a fall one night and didn't press the button as she "Didn't want to bother someone"! We tried to persuade her to move to sheltered accommodation but she always said "When I can't manage here I'll move downstairs and live on one level with my bed in the dining room." Eventually after her last stay in hospital she was only allowed home on condition that she moved her bed downstairs and lived on one level. Shortly afterwards she agreed to move to a sheltered bedsit as her home was 'no-longer her home' when she wasn't allowed upstairs!
When she moved she said "It's so lovely here, I should have moved here years ago!" Deep sighs and eye rolls from my brother (who lived nearby and had been bearing the brunt of the practical support) and myself (who lived over 200 miles away and bore the worry, along with complaints from said brother, but couldn't do much to help being a single mum of teenagers working full time in a school, so limited to time off in school holidays!).
I hope I won't be a burden to my own offspring and hope this has taught me to recognise when it is time to relinquish my independence if and when the time comes. It is true though that it is impossible to know all the circumstances of peoples' lives and their families. If elderly folk complain about their offspring's lack of support we may need to take it with a very large pinch of salt! I'm currently trying to support my elderly ex MiL who is frail and probably should move into some kind of care, but is fiercely independent! All her relatives are long distances away, some abroad, and at about 70 miles distance I'm the nearest, even if technically no longer family!
Getting old is tough. I'm trying to stay fit and active in the hope of protecting my family but there are no guarantees for any of us.

The best thing you could do is phone an ambulance and explain the situation to the crew. They will raise an action for the Fall team to come. The Fall team can then involve whoever they feel is necessary or arrange for an Occupational Therapist to come in to help them get equipment to cope.
To be fair to the family, they may have been encouraging their parents to accept help on a more frequent basis and may have met with assistance. Believe me, I've been there and you can lead a person to water but you can't make them drink!
My experience is that getting the professionals involved can be very helpful and they won't do anything you don't want them to do unless you are lacking capacity to make that decision. If anything, you are more than likely to be frustrated that they can't force an elderly person to do the right thing. Even without capacity, the person is given the benefit of the doubt. Been there and worn the bl**dy tee-shirt. NB Frustrated daughter here.

Given nobody knows the true facts how can we make a realistic comment
Ifs and buts and maybes -your friend should contact the family members or insist the parents do - social services is the wrong thing to do . Sometimes we have to take a step back from other peoples problems.

crazyH

I have a dear friend, who is a couple of years younger than me, but will not do anything on her own. She needs someone to accompany her everywhere. One of her ds.i.l. goes with her, to the grocery store, to the Doctor, to the Shops. It's not that she can't drive. She's a more confident driver than I am. I am totally different and like going on my own, which brings me to the question. How am I going to cope when I am unable to drive???? Shoot myself ?

No, don't do that.

You can take a lot of taxis in the course of a year for the sums you are currently paying in car insurance, petrol, maintenance, MOT and so on.

IF the day comes when you no longer want to drive, (or perhaps should not drive) there are marvellous options in three- wheeled scooters for the handicapped, which are an option as long as you are not blind.

I'm another who wasn't able to help, one SEN kid and another with significant healt needs necessitating a hughr burden of daily home care (respiratory physiotherapy, nebulisers, oral and long courses of IV medication, all done by me) none of which would have been obvious to an outside observer. I also had to earn a living. People probably though I wasnt pulling my weight with elderly relatives but no, I couldn't drop everything and rush out to help and babysitters obviously weren't an option. Lot's of relatives are unhelpful for many reasons but not always because they don't care. Lot's genuinely don't have the capacity or time and some older people still don't understand women have to work these days, and expect too much. My experience is that daughters are far more likely to be expected to be available than the traditional male breadwinner and are unfairly judged by different standards. My friend spent a lot of time supporting an elderly mother every day but her brother was always praised for bothering to visit them a few times a year despite having no children at home and living close by. Hopefully that's not too ranty but assuming children will be able help isn't really fair these days.

I live alone with family all more than 100 miles away. My home help is on call. I had a fall was unhurt but could not get up because there was nothing to get hold of. Called my help but she was twenty five miles away taking her daughter to hospital. So pressed my Care line button which resulted in paramedics coming. Was cross because they could be better occupied. As a result someone from social services called with all sorts of questions and wanting to see all the appliances I had to help me (which I had bought myself) and a lot of very personal questions. Just because I could not get myself up.

I’m aware of a situation that must look as though there are relatives who don’t care about a very elderly person. Unfortunately their only child, who doesn’t drive, has serious mobility issues and is in constant pain. Phone calls are almost never answered and they have not responded to an unsolicited knock at the door since their spouse died many years ago. I admit that I gave up trying to see them at home a long time ago and now live a 3 hour drive away. To be fair, my last phone call was answered (a couple of months ago) and they assured me that they were well.
It really is a sad and worrying situation, but it is very difficult to contact and interact with them. I do know that neighbours help, but have no idea how they make arrangements if my own experience is anything to go by.
I’m not a relative, but had close dealings with them many years ago, which is why I still try to keep in touch.

Thoughts from the offspring!! My mother is 86, absolutely refuses to move nearer us or into assisted living. Her balance is bad and she is not very mobile. She insists on a couple of glasses of wine in the evening (not criticising, I like wine too!) and then falls asleep at the kitchen table until two or three in the morning. She then makes her way upstairs to bed in the dark because she doesn’t want the neighbours to know she is still up.

This year she has fallen four times and laid on the floor all night because she won’t press the fall alarm which is round her neck. She has trolleys to help her move round but doesn’t use these either. After each fall, she has been in hospital but then released back home.

We are fortunate that two neighbours are lovely and go round to her when she falls but what more can we do?? We have tried to persuade her to have carers in each day for a couple of hours to make sure she is ok but she won’t do this either.

My sister and I strongly suspect that she hopes just to take a bad fall and that will be the end.

As someone else said, don't pick anyone off the floor, you have no idea, if they have broken anything, next time call an ambulance. If you are concerned about your neighbours inform adult social services, who can offer them different levels of support depending on need. they and there family might not like anyone contacting Adult social services, but I personally believe it's the right thing, you don't know what their needs are

We had a very elderly neighbour but we’ve now moved.
Her two adult children have no compunction in leaving her to cope alone.The daughter lives 300 miles away and hasn’t visited in more than 8 years.Her son is 3 miles away and drops off flowers three times a year.
We helped out when we could and she had a handyman who did all sorts to help her but they’ve had a falling out and he’s washed his hands of her (she can be difficult )
The old lady’s son when contacted, went round and threw the number of social services at her and left.so if your neighbour has family like this you’ll not get anything like a Thankyou!

My aunt would often ask friends and neighbours for help, even after I had offered assistance.
She would then complain to neighbours that she was "all on her own and had nobody to turn to."
It got to the stage that I started to keep a diary of all the help myself and the extended family provided, which proved useful after I had a phone call from one of her friends.
I had 40 minute lecture on what I should be doing to help my aunt. I was livid.
Never assume that what you are told by the very elderly person is the truth.

Yammy - your friend should not be entering this neighbour's home on a regular basis (you said it's not the first time this has happened) to pick someone up from the floor. All that's been said by others about the Falls Team of the local Social Services needing to know, and about the potential for your friend hurting herself is absolutely true. Your friend is putting herself at risk and more to the point is making herself responsible by responding to the neighbour's request. She should speak with the elderly couple and get the relatives contact details for herself and then establish whether the couple really are without support. Only with that information would it be appropriate for you to contact social services yourself. However, all this said, it's very difficult when you're faced with a plea to help an old person up off the floor, to actually refuse in that moment so it's better to avoid the request in the first place (make it known to the relatives that you can't comply).

May I ask just how old these 'elderly' neighbours are?
We were astonished to be described as such by our young neighbour when I wondered whether there were any elderly people around who might need our help at the start of all this!

I would suggest perhaps 90+ ExDancer? But then I look at David Attenborough

Good advice Carson

If they have carers in place it’s likely the council are aware of their situation. You could attempt to speak with the carers to see who put them in place. Do their children live a long way away ?? Those alarms are great but can be expensive my mother has one from Careline It maybe if they are on a low income that the council can help. Perhaps the couple are struggling in their current accommodation and might be able to consider buying a part sheltered warden assisted self contained apartment to maintain independence yet have help around them ? Never pick them up, cover them so they are warm and ring for a paramedic You can put a pillow under their head too if they haven’t bashed their head or injured their spine/neck Horrible and sad situation and it may be the children are not actually aware of the full situation

Well sometimes family don't always know how far things have deteriorated but they should know really if they visit. Anyway it's often the doctor or hospital that gets SS involved. Ask them. They may want help.

May I ask just how old these 'elderly' neighbours are?
We are in our 80s and quite frankly get very frustrated by neighbours treating us like us like ignorant children, much as we appreciate their concern.
If the neighbour who'd had the fall was awake and sure nothing had been damaged, and wanted to get off the floor there's no problem in your being there as a prop for him to use to help himself to a chair. Sometimes you just want to be left where you are for a few minutes to gather your wits.
I think most people know not to lift or move an unconscious person nowadays.

My ex mother-in-law (83) has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Understandably she is upset and a bit frightened. She lives alone and has other health issues. Her daughter doesn’t seem to care, visits occasionally and has little sympathy for her mum. MIL gets very upset and cries to me about her. I tried to tactfully suggest to her daughter that her mother needed a bit of support but was told to not “Stick my nose in”!