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English-speaking retirement homes


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I am posting this both here and in the Poitou-Charente section as I very much hope to trigger some response.

I live in the UAE and my dad (89) has been coping fairly well since my mother passed away 5 yrs ago. However he is becoming frail and he recognizes that he will soon need assistance but he does not speak French.

We have been looking for English-speaking/bilingual residences for 2 years now and have only come across the new home at Mouans-Sartoux, which, unfortunately, is too costly for us.

We are looking at the Charente Maritime area as I will be retiring there in a few years.

Would anyone have any suggestions as to how we may tackle this problem?

Thanks,

Mirambeaut
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My heart goes out to you Mirambeaut, as I just spent years looking after my parents from abroad- it is is hard enough to find solutions without having to worry about language. I sincerely hope you will find a nice place for him soon.

Please, please, do not read this as a criticism of your dad- but I have heard of so many cases like this - and it is so upsetting. There are many on Forums like this one who say 'I'm too old to learn the language, grammar too difficult, was put off at school, etc, etc' - and I think what will happen one day when they are isolated in hospital or in an OAP home, or even in their own home, having lost their partner. When my dad was in hospital for a while, there was a very elderly English gentleman there, and he could not communicate with any of the other patients, and only 1 of the staff, a Croatian doctor.

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Yes, agreed RH this can happen - but of course if one has little language in the first place- it's bound to be worse tight from the start. My mil, was bilingual English and Afrikaans, but in the last stages of Alzheimers she totally reverted to Afrikaans, her childhood language. My only British neighbour died recently - she lived here for most of ther life but never acquired a good command of French, and yet had become very hesitant in English.

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You might contact this lot:

http://www.charente-limousine-exchange.com/

"Rothrugby" who posts here is a leading light.  Their local knowledge and well-established Anglophone network might have a few more ideas.

This is a really tough one.  I think it could be the worst thing in the world to be stuck in a country where one is not confident with the language. RH does have a point.  My mother (88) spoke excellent French when she was younger but does really struggle now when she comes over .

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[quote user="Russethouse"]

 I think it's here that I read that even if you have a degree of expertise in another language, you can lose it as you age.

[/quote]

On the other hand, there was some other research which showed that bilingual people were less likely to develop Altzheimers disease, senile dementia etc, than those who only speak one language.

Or developed it at a later age.

Regarding going into an old age home in France - there's a front page article in this month's Connexion about a family in England who have been sent bills to pay for their father's care in an old age home in France. I haven't read it thoroughly yet, but something to keep in mind [:(]

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Thank you everyone for your feedback. It IS tough trying to do this from abroad...

My parents moved rather suddenly, in their late seventies, from Canada to France, in order to be closer to my brother, who lives in France but doesn't help, and to myself in the Middle East.

Their language skills extended to Spanish but not to French and my dad often will use a Spanish word for something. Sometimes he gets lucky as the word will be similar in French.

Anyway, I will have a look at this other website and see what they have to say :) Thank you very much for the lead.

Mirambeaut
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I understand your worries so well - having looked after my parents for years from abroad (so much easier of course from the UK - at least I could fly out regularly - yes with 2 brothers here who did nothing!). Where abouts are your parents? Perhaps there is a kind soul here who lives in their area and would not mind visiting once in a while and reporting back to you. Perhaps somebody who would be prepared to do so regularly, maybe for a fee.

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