My MIL (age 93) puts things away and can't remember where and then she accuses me of taking them. If I look through the many drawers she has in her room and find the missing item or card or letter behind me I hear "of course you found it, cause you know where you hid it." Now we are on to the taking money from her bank account accusations. Wants a history of all her savings from the 1960's to now. Wants to know where all her money they saved went. Strangely enough she seems so aware of so much and then not aware of other things. We have a geriatric team in place and there is a diagnosis of Vascular Dementia on her chart. We have started some medications to help her with the hallucinations but I don't think we are any where near the dose we need to be at yet. However her capacity to make her own decisions is still in question. One day she is truly not in her right mind and then she comes back to being somewhat normal. Makes it so hard to tell if it is the dementia or her personality disorder that is underneath all this. Her accusations are very hurtful but especially to my husband (her son). She has lived with us for 2 years now and we have done everything to make her life here as pleasant as possible. She has lots of bladder incontinence and we wash many pairs of pants a day. She is a huge fall risk and she was sitting on her bed and slid right off a few weeks ago and smashed her face right into the dresser. Not a pretty look on her face after that. She has had several episodes of psychosis and has had many hallucinations since even before she was brought here. We are exhausted and fed up with all the insults. We have put her name on a crisis list to be admitted to a nursing home asap. She is aware now that she has to go if they call us (has refused 3 times before) and the episode two days ago was "call me a lawyer I need to change my will". Wants to give charity what money she has. She is angry with us I guess. We told her that we have the POA and that she cannot be doing this kind of thing. Today she is sitting quietly in her room and not saying anything about it. We can see the volcano starting to emit some smoke. (LOL) My poor husband is now filled with guilt over the nursing home decision because she is sitting so nice and polite. I said it's only a matter of time before we get hit with another episode. To be clear we don't want her money, we know we need to have it in her account to help pay for her long term care needs.
As you mentioned, she needs her money to pay for her care in a nursing home. Typically, with no money - Medicaid would pay. However, that won’t happen
once they learn MIL had money - but gave it away.
Guess who would be on the hook to pay for her care? That or continue to have mil living in your home. Cause you can bet - Medicaid would have a dickens of a time recovering the funds from a charity.
Play along with Mom-in-law's accusations. If you are searching her drawers to find something and she once again blames you for hiding it, just way "whew, I almost forgot where I hid it". It will be a win-win for both of you.
Instead of a nursing home, your Mom-in-law might do well in Assisted Living/Memory Care since she will be self-paying. Today's Assisted Living/Memory Care facilities are set up more like hotels instead of hospital type setting of a nursing home. Mom will grumble for a while until she get adjusted. Don't be surprised if she said she will be packing as she hates the place.... [sigh].
And tell hubby that his Mom now needs a village to help her, so not to feel guilty but to feel good that he is doing the right thing.
But, since she has been diagnosed with Dementia, she cannot change her will. She can't make an informed decision.