I live halfway around the world from the UK and I have an elderly parent in Scotland who's having increasing trouble taking care of themselves but either refuses free help that's offered by the council, or fails to get paid help.
It's getting very frustrating. For personal as well as financial reasons going back to Scotland to help look after our parent isn't a remotely viable option, but I'm going back next year for a couple of weeks to assess the situation for myself. One of my siblings has been there to check things out already and taken care of some arrangements.
Our parent is a home owner with a pension. She didn't want to take advantage of the local council's 'care at home' scheme. We arranged for her to get at least weekly visits from a paid carer, after they insisted they wanted to pay for their own help–then failed to pay for it, so we took care of the payments ourselves.
They appear to have zero interest in a care home, which is fair enough if they want to remain independent, but also have rheumatoid arthritis which is making a lot of simple daily tasks very difficult.
Basically, if there's free help from the Council, they don't want to know. I don't know why.
The only remaining option is a care home, which they don't want, but none of us can afford that and our parent seems to think we have far more money than we do, or perhaps don't understand how expensive this option would be (when I was a lot younger, I remember them insisting I could get a mortgage even though I was unemployed at the time and with no money in the bank).
Obviously one option is selling off her house to pay for the care home, but neither can we get any details from our parent about what kind of mortgage it is they actually have, which also worries me.
Someone I know told me refusal to get help or to have any kind of change in routine can itself be a sign of cognitive decline – they're in their 90s now. I'd appreciate any advice on how to deal with a situation like this, or if you've been in a situation like this yourself and have any advice.