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My Mother is 91, has Alzheimer's and has just been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I live 200 miles away and go up when I can. My sister lives a mile away and sees her daily. This arrangement worked until she fell out of her bed and lay there for a while until my sister arrived and sought help.
We don't want her to go in a home and are getting help from local hospice and Macmillan.
Is it possible to get an internal camera to check on her remotely which does not require broadband? We've been quoted a few weeks to get it installed and I'd like to find a solution much more quickly.
Thanks all
Is it possible to get an internal camera to check on her remotely which does not require broadband?
that would probalby be possible but would cost a fortune. If there's 4g coverage then get a 4g wifi hotspot, an £20 a month sim card with unlimited data from someone like smarty and connect a wifi camera to it?
Yes, agree with the above. Smarty use the Three network which doesn't have great coverage. So check that.
Lebara use vodaphone, which at least for us, has been far superior.
Thanks both - I'll look at Lebara as I know Vodafone has coverage but Three does not.
The Hive mind does it again!
Might also be worth speaking to OT’s at hospital or social work dept. There are some pretty clever things they can do now.
We don’t want her to go in a home and are getting help from local hospice and Macmillan.
This is entirely understandable however we were faced with a similar choice when my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer - hospice or die at home. She wanted the latter and so that's what we did.
I wish we had gone the hospice route as they can provide better care than we possibly could and there were too many gaps toward the end from what the various services said they could offer and what was actually provided.
'The team' looking after my mum consisted of Sister 1 - teacher, her wife - teacher so they were on general house running duties; making sure everyone was fed, the house had supplies etc. Sister 2 - GP, sister 3 - physio, BiL - Surgeon. So, they were in charge of the medical care up to and including injecting pain relief etc (with the blessing of the hospice team). Me - doing the necessary car runs, organising appointments, general logistics etc. My wife - looking after me and children. We all basically had a month off work to manage it all.
So 7 people, 3 of whom were medics, working full time to look after my mum. And it was nearly impossible. Ultimately I am not convinced we provided the best care and my mum was at times less comfortable than she could have been.
The district nurses were next to useless (it was 6 years ago now and I still get really angry just thinking about them) and the hospice, whilst they provided what support they could and were brilliant when they were there, did not have the resources required to really look after someone in their own home.
If you can make it work then go for it but I just wouldn't want anyone to underestimate just how hard it can be and do not rule out a hospice as they are geared up to provide the specialist care needed, particularly further down the line.
I'm not sure a camera for surveillance is the right answer here. Are you going to check it every n minutes (10, 30, 90 minutes depending on your conscience)? What about night time? What if the camera goes offline, or she wanders out of view? Even if you saw a problem it'd presumably take some time to get to her.
Would she use one of those pendant alarm things to call for help if she got into strife?
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/products/mobility-and-independence-at-home/personal-alarms/
As above, an OT assessment would be good for figuring out what your mother might benefit from. I don't know how this is arranged - presumably via the GP (or the hospital if she's been admitted). Perhaps you could talk to her doctor(s) about arranging some sort of outpatient OT?
Also, without wishing to be too callous, the situation may well get worse. Whatever you have in mind for now might not be that helpful in 3 or 6 months' time.
I wish we had gone the hospice route as they can provide better care than we possibly could and there were too many gaps toward the end from what the various services said they could offer and what was actually provided.
I would agree with this, and a similar tale to my mother’s last month. It took my father, my partner ( a recently retired GP) myself, my brother and his wife in the last week and my sister when she made it back from Italy,and we barely coped.
This was mostly due to the emotional drain and our lack of expertise to be honest rather than lack of people.
By the time she was ready to enter a hospice it was too late to arrange and the last few days were distressing for everyone concerned. She did die at home, with all of us present. The district nurses were no real help, but to be fair to them they did their best under dreadful staff shortages.
We've just had my father's flat checked - he's got the emergency pull cords in each room, now led to the floor as he had tied them all up high(!).
He also has a few neighbours with help from AgeUK
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/products/mobility-and-independence-at-home/personal-alarms/
I remember a former colleague mentioning they had kitted out his parents house with some sort of sensors/kit which capture movement and items being used around the home and would log it and could be viewed via an app or portal.
I think one day he said it got to mid morning and the kettle hadnt been on or the kitchen lights hadnt been turned on so he called his dad who hadnt got out of bed as he felt unwell. Sorry I dont know the name of the kit or app though but thought this tech might be useful in this situation if you choose to not go via the hospice.
There’s lots of telemedicine solutions available. Pendant alarms (use phone system- great until everyone has fttp) pressure sensors that detect if someone has got out of bed and not got back in or having a long lie on the floor.
Speak to local council who will give a list of providers. They usually have a monthly rental fee etc.
Eg- this is the company whose products are installed at my m-i-l new accommodation
https://www.tunstall.co.uk/our-products/#
Is the house within range of existing wifi?
Can you piggy back onto a friendly neighbours?
or can you get at "Open Reach" from in the house?
Personal alarm/pendant as suggested above works well. No cameras but a very sensitive mic that can hear a quiet call for help throughout the house
Plugs into the phone socket and auto-dials the service provider either from the pendant or the base station. Some use the pendant as a mic.
Key box for access can be provided as part of the service.
Service provider can have a two-way conversation to find out if it's a false alarm and my parents' local council can call 999, family or send out their patrol as appropriate
We have a similar issue, thought about cameras but we got a monitored dongle thingy,about 40 quid per month. Twice daily carers, food delivered, service wash weekly, gardener, weekly cleaner.
I reckon it's about half the price of a care home and pretty much all the services.
I do this for work.
Very short term, a camera working via 4G means you will have something up and running quickly. But really you should be getting a monitored alarm, usually provided by your local authority but there are private options around as well. Monitored alarms work through a phone line so no need for broadband. Falls detectors are pretty standard or, alternately, a bed sensor may work better (if your mums falls risk is at night). A bed sensor works by triggering a call to the alarm receiving centre if your mum doesn't get back into bed after set time has lapsed. My team put this in within two working days of getting a referral.
The critical difference here is the tech is reactive and alerts a 24/7 alarm receiving centre, rather than you having to check in each time. This works really well with your sister living close by as the alarm centre will call her if they are worries about your Mum (and if I don't think she needs a 999 response).
Get on your local authority website and search community alarms. If they give you the run around or delay, then have look at Age UK alarms They will be exactly the same tech.
Smarty use the Three network which doesn’t have great coverage.
Possibly in your area, currently running 5G at 950mb/s via Smarty. And we’re pretty rural too.
A bed sensor works by triggering a call to the alarm receiving centre if your mum doesn’t get back into bed after set time has lapsed.
Thats clever.
My understanding is my gran will go down for a sit in downstairs at all hours, but she wont do any standing at any time of the day or night, so a few of those on chairs she uses, and in the bed would be great fall alert, even if its just an alert to check the camera
age UK are a good starting point.
Wristband and lanyard mounted alarms are available from the local authority - the charges aren't high
This is all super helpful - thank you. My Mother can't use any self administered alarms as her dementia is quite far progressed. She's not far off hospice care and we're trying to preserve her quality of life/happiness by being at home for as long as possible.
It's a difficult call and dementia is an absolute b*****d
Well, my Mother, Ollie, passed away this afternoon, two months off her 92nd birthday. My Sister and I held her hands and she died peacefully.
Sorry for your loss.
Yes, condolences.
Oh hell fire. Condolences.
It's probably of little comfort right now, but she had a good innings and was with people who loved and cared for her. We don't all get that.
I'm sorry for your loss. My grandfather passed away just over a week ago, he was 93 with dementia and Cancer. Dementia is indeed a bastard. I'm glad you got to be with her
Ollie had the best of final days care and a "good" death. A sterling effort by you and yours and my condolences for your loss(es) as it's dementia.
My condolences for your loss.