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Your relative moves in with you John's story
John T 61, Lake District
John and his wife noticed that her 89-year-old mother had lost weight and was finding living alone difficult. They decided their best option was for her to move into their home.
"We were lucky that we lived only six miles away from my mother-in-law, so we could keep an eye on her and we visited her at least twice a week to see how things were. We noticed that she was getting confused and unable to use her television and her hi-fi system to play her favourite types of music. She was living by herself and I went with her to the doctors – she couldn’t get there herself. The doctor noticed her weight loss and he decided to do one of the mental agility tests that they do and her scoring wasn’t as good as it could be. "We wanted to give her her own living space so that we had our own living space still." My mother-in-law is 89 and she recognises both my wife and myself, no problem at all, but her concentration levels are very, very low. We didn’t consider any other option but to have Mother move in with us, because family look after family. So we decided to bring her here to live with us or to stay with us for a short period of time and, in fact, she has never returned home.