Category Archives: Older care

The torment of trying to be a good granny AND a dutiful daughter

Top author Rosie Staal says women like her are in despair

  • 92-year-old mother Jean is beset by Alzheimer’s, breast cancer, hearing loss and poor sight 
  • Rosie longs to spend more time with grandsons Joe, 5 and Zach, 3, and her two-year-old granddaughter Poppy
  • Women over 60 make up nearly a third of all hospital admissions for anxiety – juggling caring for elderly parents, grandchildren and ageing or ill partners
  • Rosie worries she is also neglecting her husband David 

By Rosie Staal

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On the train heading home to Dorset from London last week, I leaned my head against the cold window, closed my eyes and savoured a rare moment to draw breath.

After spending three days with my grandsons Joe, five, and Zach, three, I could still hear their joyful voices in my ears and feel their trusting little hands in mine.

Turning my back as they wave goodbye haunts me after every visit, causing a physical jolt to my heart.

Loneliness becoming a modern epidemic

Family carers can feel lonely?

You’re not alone – more and more people are suffering loneliness. Lisa Salmon reports on a growing and worrying problem

WE ALL have days when we feel slightly alone. Our friends are busy, the kids are away, nobody’s responding to your texts or calls. But this is very different to feeling deeply, inconsolably lonely. Loneliness is a growing problem, in a modern society that spreads people further and further from their family roots and compels them more and more to interact with technology rather than real people.

Let the elderly in care keep their own furniture to make it feel like home, says minister

  • Allowing their possessions about them reassures old people in homes

  • 25,000 care homes will be subjected to a ‘robust’ inspection scheme
  • Care should be ‘personalised’ especially for those with dementia 

By Tania Steere For Daily Mail

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Care homes should be fitted with the curtains, bedspreads and furniture of their occupants to try to make them a ‘civilised’ home from home, according to the Care Minister.

Norman Lamb warned last night that many residents, especially those with dementia, feel alienated and confused when ‘plunged into’ an unfamiliar environment.

The Daily Mail has waged a long-running Dignity for the Elderly campaign for better standards in hospitals and care homes.