Charlotte noticed changes in her mother’s behaviour and that her mother was pretending to be able to do things she clearly could not do. Her mother’s doctor was also concerned and contacted Charlotte as she thought her mother was taking too many tablets. Charlotte’s mother was forgetting she had taken her tablets and then was taking more. The doctor also thought that Charlotte’s mother was forgetting when she had been visiting the doctor’s surgery, so they arranged for a social worker to do a care assessment. After getting an MRI scan, Charlotte’s mother was diagnosed with mixed dementia. Charlotte feels that without the help from her mother’s GP, her mother would have “fallen through the cracks a bit” as the social care system is “all over the place.”

Charlotte’s mother has high care needs and four domiciliary care visits a day. Charlotte does not live with her mother, so she has to coordinate her mother’s care during visits and remotely. She has found working with carers and the council to be a learning curve and closely monitors everything. She uses a rota and checklist, and the carers provide a narrative of her mother’s care to keep her informed.