Jamie Shie

Communications and Marketing Lead

Life with a live-in carer

Carer Guilt: Why It Happens and How to Work Through It

If you are caring for someone you love, there is one feeling you probably know all too well: guilt. The nagging sense that you are not doing enough, not doing it well enough, or somehow letting someone down. It can follow you around quietly, colouring everything, and it is one

Safety, health and wellbeing

Recognising Signs of Pain in a Parent Who Can't Easily Express It

Pain is hard enough to cope with when you can describe it. But what happens when your parent cannot easily tell you they are hurting? For older people living with dementia, or with communication difficulties after a stroke, or simply with a lifelong reluctance to complain, pain can go unnoticed

Safety, health and wellbeing

Wandering and Dementia: How Live-in Care Reduces the Risk Safely

For families of someone living with dementia, few worries are as frightening as the thought of them leaving the house, becoming lost, and coming to harm. This tendency to walk about, often called wandering, is common in dementia, and it can be a genuine source of dread, especially at night,

Safety, health and wellbeing

Sundowning: What It Is and How Live-in Carers Manage It

If you care for someone living with dementia, you may have noticed a distressing pattern: as afternoon turns to evening, they become more confused, restless, anxious or agitated than they were earlier in the day. This is known as sundowning, and it is very common in dementia. It can be

Starting the conversation

When Caring for a Parent Affects Your Own Marriage or Relationships

When you are caring for an ageing parent, there is often someone else quietly feeling the strain: your partner, and your relationship. Caring can put real pressure on a marriage, and on other close relationships too, and it is something that frequently goes unspoken, even as the tension builds. If

Safety, health and wellbeing

Communicating With a Parent in Later-Stage Dementia

As dementia advances into its later stages, one of the hardest changes for families is what happens to communication. A parent may speak very little, or not at all. They may no longer follow what is said to them, and may not seem to recognise you. It can feel, heartbreakingly,

Starting the conversation

Live-in Care vs Moving In With an Adult Child: An Honest Comparison

When a parent needs more support, one of the questions families wrestle with most is this: should we bring them to live with us, or arrange live-in care in their own home? Both options come from a place of deep love, and both can be absolutely the right choice,

Safety, health and wellbeing

How to Communicate With a Parent Who Has Hearing Loss

If a parent is losing their hearing, you will know how easily conversations can become frustrating for everyone. Words are missed, things have to be repeated, and both of you can end up tired or exasperated. Over time, that frustration can quietly cause an older person to withdraw from conversation

Getting care in place

What If My Parent's Condition Suddenly Worsens? How Care Scales Up

When you first arrange care, it is natural to worry about the future. What happens if my parent gets worse? Will the care keep pace with their needs, or will we suddenly have to uproot them to a care home just as they are at their most vulnerable? It is

Paying for care

Equity Release to Pay for Care: How It Works and the Risks

For many older people, most of their wealth is tied up in one place: their home. So when care is needed and the costs mount, it is natural to wonder whether that value could help pay for it, without having to sell up and move. Equity release is one way

Starting the conversation

When One Spouse Becomes the Decision-Maker for the Other's Care

There are few harder moments in a marriage than the one where you realise your husband or wife can no longer make their own decisions, and that you must begin making them on their behalf. Whether it comes gradually with dementia, or suddenly after a stroke or serious illness, taking

Life with a live-in carer

Intimacy and Relationships in Later Life: What Changes With a Carer in the Home

It is a subject rarely talked about, and often quietly worried about: what happens to intimacy, privacy and relationships when a carer comes to live in the home? It is a completely legitimate question, and one that deserves an honest, respectful answer, because the need for closeness, affection and connection

Getting care in place

What If We Need to Pause Care Temporarily?

Life does not always run in a straight line, and neither does care. Sometimes a situation comes up where live-in care needs to pause for a while: a spell in hospital, a family holiday, a stay with relatives, or simply a change in circumstances. It is a very common

Getting care in place

Arranging Live-in Care That Respects Religious Dietary Requirements

For many people, what they eat is not just a matter of taste or nutrition. It is bound up with faith, culture and identity, and observing dietary requirements such as halal, kosher or vegetarian is a deeply important part of who they are. When care becomes necessary, families understandably want

Getting care in place

Medication Reminder Apps and Dispensers: Do They Still Matter With Live-in Care?

If your loved one uses a medication reminder app, an automatic pill dispenser, or a beeping timer to keep track of their tablets, you might wonder whether any of it is still needed once a live-in carer arrives. After all, if a carer is there to help with medication,

Getting care in place

A House Key and Access Checklist: Locks, Alarms, and Entry Systems

It is one of those practical details that is easy to overlook in the middle of arranging care, but getting home access sorted before day one saves a surprising amount of hassle. Your loved one's carer needs to be able to come and go safely and securely, family

Getting care in place

Insurance Considerations for Live-in Care: Home and Car

Insurance is not the most exciting part of arranging care, and it is easily overlooked. But a few simple checks before care begins can save a great deal of worry later, and make sure everyone is properly protected. It is one of those things that is far better sorted in

Getting care in place

Emergency Contacts List: Who Your Carer Needs to Be Able to Reach

It is one of the simplest things you can prepare before care begins, and one of the most genuinely useful. A clear, up-to-date list of emergency and key contacts means that if anything happens, or your loved one's carer simply needs to reach the right person

Getting care in place

Introducing Pets to a New Carer

When a live-in carer joins a household with a much-loved pet, there is a lovely relationship waiting to form, but like any relationship, it helps to get off to a gentle start. Animals, just like people, need a little time to adjust to a new face in their

Getting care in place

How to Prepare Emotionally for a Carer Moving Into the Family Home

There is a great deal of practical preparation that goes into welcoming a live-in carer, the room, the keys, the paperwork. But there is another kind of preparation that matters just as much, and it is rarely talked about: the emotional side. Having someone move into the family home,

Hospital and care transitions

Cardiac Rehab at Home: How Live-in Care Supports Recovery After a Heart Event

A heart attack, heart surgery, a stent, or a new diagnosis of heart failure is a frightening thing for anyone, and for their family. Coming home afterwards brings relief, but also a daunting new reality: a recovery to manage, a rehabilitation programme to follow, and, often, a real fear of

Safety, health and wellbeing

Staying Mentally Active: Hobbies, Puzzles and Lifelong Learning at Home

We tend to think a great deal about keeping older people physically well, and rightly so. But keeping the mind active matters every bit as much. A stimulated, engaged mind supports mood, confidence, a sense of purpose, and general wellbeing, and it helps later life feel rich and full rather

Starting the conversation

The Sandwich Generation: Balancing Kids, Career and Ageing Parents

There is a name for the particular kind of exhaustion that comes from caring for your children and your ageing parents at the same time, while holding down a job in between. It is called being part of the sandwich generation, and if you are living it, you will know

Safety, health and wellbeing

Coping With Hay Fever and Allergies in Older Adults

Hay fever and allergies are often thought of as something that affects children and younger adults, but they can trouble older people too, and sometimes for the first time later in life. Itchy eyes, a runny nose, sneezing and congestion are just as miserable at eighty as at eighteen, and

Starting the conversation

Caring for a Parent From Abroad: Coordinating Care as a British Expat

Building a life overseas is something to be proud of. But when a parent back in the UK starts to need more support, living abroad brings a particular kind of worry, and a particular kind of guilt. You are hundreds or thousands of miles away, in a different time zone,