In February i placed my mom in a rehabilitation home for 60 days. In that time I spent $12,000 in just cleaning her home. Another 40,000 in improvements. I replaced the heater, air conditioner, windows, made a handicap bathroom for her, remodel both bathroom from the ground up as well as the kitchen. This just a partial list. I was told by her cardiologist she has year a beat and I want her to have safe comfortable place to live.
She suffers from deep depression..... The clean up was a typical horder complex. She has always been anti social......from the time I grew up she has only had one friend and that person recently past away. Twice widow and divorced once. Her childhood was a nightmare. She was adopted for all the wrong reasons and was told over and over she was farm help and a christian duty.
Every time I bring her home she refuses to leave the bed except to the restroom. This causes her copd to get worse and then back to the hospital with pneumonia. I finally found one home provider that would come on three times a week and bath her otherwise she would go weeks without a bath.
Biggest problems she becomes such a drama queen or treats the people helping so bad they have no wish to be there. Even the nursing home she went to last week has complained to me that my mom constantly buzzes the nurses. She make up stories of abuse accuses everyone around her of abuse. She even accused me her only family member that I deliberately moved her walker causing her to fall.I gave her a plate in her room. I started to place the plate on the walker bench seat when said place it on the table. In order to do that I moved the walker closer to the front of the bed leaned over and placed on the table. Twelve hours later I found her face down facing the bed and the walker pushed to the other end of the bed. She told everyone I moved the walker. Secondly she claims she was on the floor for 12 hours. But her diaper was dry. She does not always take her medications and lies about taking them. She get confused and I suspect a vision and hearing loss. My fears this will happen again she will fall.....stay on bed all day long. How do go about getting people to reali she needs more than a bath three times a week?
Does she have a hospital bed at home? Changing her position might help with the copd and other bed-bound problems.
She is lucky to have you in her life, trying to provide a good environment for her. Somehow she managed to raise a caring person in spite of her own poor role models.
Maybe others will have specific things you can try. But do keep in mind that this situation is Not Your Fault. If you are able to improve Mom's final time, great. If nothing you try seems to work, don't feel guilty. This is Not Your Fault. (Repeat that as necessary if you feel guilt creeping up.)
Also inquire of her cardiologist about Hospice.
We placed mthr in a locked memory care, and she has blossomed. She pretty much sits in the dining or living room and gossips about everyone who walks by, but she has people to gossip and commiserate with. That has been a huge help to her because she has been so lonely since she retired.
Another aspect of her care has been her medication. When she moved in, she was required to have her meds in daily packs sent from the pharmacy and presented to her at the right time of day. I described her crying jaunts - which were only in front of hubby and me, not staff - and the doc prescribed her an anti depressant. In a month she was SO MUCH HAPPIER. It was like we had peeled off a layer of clouds and she was seeing some sunshine now and again! She's now on a drug which is often used for personality disorders, and she is an entirely different person. I wish she'd been on either her whole life, and both our lives would have been so different.
My answer, a residential placement, may sound unloving, but the benefits have been wonderful to her. If you were to ask, mthr would say she wants to go home. But she loves having someone cook and clean for her, and now that she's on hospice, she has an aide come and bathe and dress her and put her down at night along with a medical visit once a week where they fuss over her. She loves having special medical equipment arrive because everyone is talking about her getting a visit. She's special again.