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carehome assessment

Posted , 3 users are following.

jayne59196
jayne59196

Hi can anyone help. my mother has been placed in care we have been told she is not aloud contact from family for 6 weeks.  She is in Scotland. This is because of adjustment and to assess her needs. Is this standard practice. Feels a long time for someone suffering dementia to have no contact from family.

0 likes, 6 replies

6 Replies

  • Ginagirl
    Ginagirl jayne59196

    Posted

    In a word no! This is wrong!

    @@Question that if it's private a care home is basically not A registered Nursing Home..a care home can be managed as long as it is by Qualified Registered Nurse. Usually NVQ staff..  No one should dictate to you like that it is not standard practice. Who has placed her in the care home? You don't have to agree to this placement if you are unhappy with this draconian ethos . Contact the Social Services.

    • jayne59196
      jayne59196 Ginagirl

      Posted

      Thanks for that it seemed wrong to me will need to find out exactly where she is staying as my sisters over there have not told us as yet. x
    • jayne59196
      jayne59196

      Posted

      its my sisters that have placed her in care we have been told that she had been assessed at home a placement came up so they took it.  it was then that we were told she was there for respite/assessment that we were not aloud contact for 3 weeks...just been updated from sister who has said our mum needs a longer assessment which is a further 3 weeks then it looks like our mum will be made permanent. I dont think this is right. In fairness to wherever our mum is it may be our sisters that are misleading us.
  • Ginagirl
    Ginagirl jayne59196

    Posted

    Any Assessment in a care home should not prevent you from seeing her ..thats just not right. Contact the Social Service for Elderly care talk to them..they should have an involvement.  this is probably the rules of the Carehome not generally standard to stop family going in. I would check it could be your Sisters saying that! but If that were my Mother I certainly would not be happy about that assessment or not! 
    • jayne59196
      jayne59196 Ginagirl

      Posted

      Hi

      Thank you will send an email to my sisters as I am far from happy but live on the opposite side of the world. Thank you for your help. 

  • micksmixxx
    micksmixxx jayne59196

    Posted

    Dear jayne59196,

    Please forgive me for only just coming across your discussion but I've only just joined patient.info.  If anything, I joined to specifically respond to your question as to whether it's "normal" to have been told that family contact is not allowed for 6 weeks after someone's admission.

    I'm not sure what the 'rules' are north of the border, my friend, but I can say that that is extremely bad practice.  In any home that I've run that has NEVER been the practice, and if it were I'd have changed it immediately.

    I'm sure that you realise that your mother's cognitive abilities (thought processes) aren't quite 'normal' anymore.  Dependent on how far her dementia has developed, she MAY be unsure as to where she is exactly.  She MAY believe that she's been abandoned.  She MAY believe that she's done something wrong and that her family no longer want her around.

    Add to this the confusion she must be feeling about being in new surroundings, being surrounded by new people, having to adhere to a new daily routine.  This all serves to make her confusion even more debilitating.  She MAY actually feel as though it's not worth living like this.  Sadly, if that is the case, both her mental functioning AND her physical health will deteriorate.  I've witnessed it happening countless times.

    I notice in your response to Dawnregina that it was your sisters that moved your mother into the care home.  First of all, please don't blame them for any decision that they came to about this, it MAY well have been that whoever was caring for your mother had realised just how stressful it can be and really needed to arrive at a decision as to what would be best for your mother.  What I would ask, however, is whether your sisters actually visited the home prior to your mother being admitted?  Were they informed of this 6 weeks restriction on being allowed to visit your mother?  Did one, or more, of your sisters go to the home when your mother was admitted to help her 'settle in'?  Did they help her to unpack, stay for a while, have a walk around the home to familiarise her with her new surroundings, etc.?  Did they stay and have a cup of tea/coffee with her, or even have something to eat?  These things let her know that the place is a 'safe place' and that she can still do some of the things that she likes to do, or things that she used to do at home.

    As Dawnregina states, you should really get Social Services involved ... that's if they aren't already.  If your mother is actually suffering with dementia, they should have been involved from quite near the beginning.  Hopefully, you'd have a Social Worker that knows something about dementia and will argue with the home about their practices, though I will admit that this sometimes falls on deaf ears as some Managers of these homes feel they 'know best' when really they know very little about caring for clients with dementia, of whichever type it might be.

    It is NOT unusual for an assessment to last 6 weeks, my friend, though not all assessments do last this long.  It IS certainly unusual to restrict contact between client and family though.  Every home that I've worked in has encouraged contact.  This helps the client (your mother in this case) to settle into their new 'home', and it gives them the opportunity to express their likes and dislikes about the new regime.

    To me, an assessment is a two-way process.  It serves to assess your mother's needs and capabilities, to see whether she 'fits in' with other clients that live within that home, to see whether your mother actually likes it at the home, and whether she'd be alright about living there.

    I certainly hope that some good comes of this assessment and that your mother derives some benefit from her stay at the home.  I shall be looking forward to finding out what happens and have ticked the box to follow this discussion.

    Be well, jayne59196.

    Lots of Love and Light.

     Mick

    x x x x

     x x x

    P.S. Please don't be offended or alarmed at the "x's".  It's simply a logo, of sorts, that I've used for some 30-odd years now.

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