Relative With Dementia

[Barquentine]

Can anyone advise what options might be available to us? My wife is caring for her mother (who has mixed vascular dementia and Alzheimer's) six days a week. Luckily her mother only lives about a ten minute drive from us, but my wife gets to spend just one day (Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon) with me, (My wife's sister will only look after her mother one day a week). My wife has a full-time job (nominally 4 days + 1 day off a week - but in practice she does 5 days' worth of work). Thankfully her employer is very helpful and allows her to work entirely remotely. She is very well regarded by her employer due to her very conscientious work, her reliability and her always going the extra miles to deliver on time. Mother-in-law owns her house so she could afford to fund private care - either visiting or a care home - except - my wife does not want her mother to go into a care home and her mother gets stressed by strangers visiting her house. Can anyone think of a way out of this Catch-22 conundrum? Since M-i-L is lucky enough to be able to afford care, I try to argue my wife should not be putting herself under such a burden - she can rarely leave her mother alone so is stuck indoors with her all week. I can foresee this wearing my wife down until she can no longer endure the tedium (my wife does not see things this way). But neither of them will consider private care and I cannot think of anything else. There must be an answer somewhere - which is why I am now turning to The AnswerBank. Any ideas anyone has would be very gratefully received. Thank you in anticipation.

[Smowball]

Ooh DTC - I must take a look at this book.