My parents are 87 and live alone. I've managed to wedge in 4hs of care 2x a week. Dad has moderate-advanced dementia, but can still get around, mostly get dressed, etc. Mom is less sharp than she was, and suffers from anxiety. Went to a bunch of assisted living places and got on a waiting list. Unit came up but she will not make the decision to move, despite my brothers and me, as well as our doctors, exhorting her.
Does anyone have any stories you can share about what finally got someone over the edge?
Did I say they live in a house with stairs and the bedrooms and full bath are all upstairs?
My daughter and I visited my parents at the end of July 2017. Everything seemed normal, my parents were slowing down but in their right minds.
In September 2017 I began getting odd phone calls from both my parents. One telling all the transgressions of the other kind of call. That was nothing new, they have tried to get me to be on ‘their side’ against the other since I was very young. Over the month the calls got frantic. I had to go through a hurricane before I could make it up to visit them.
I couldn’t believe the sheer chaos and bizarre goings on at my parents house. First I had to grasp that I was in charge, they were looking to me for help! Since mom seemed the worse off physically we took her to be evaluated at Geri Psych. Yup. Moderate Dementia. And depression. She was stabilized on a few new meds and discharged to an AL facility. She cursed me for a couple weeks if I called or visited but now she likes it there. She’s friendly enough to me. And she doesn’t beat on my Daddy when he visits her either. Or rush him with a kitchen knife. She’s such a lady, always has been, that the woman hitting and screaming at us seems dim in my mind and the new well fed, well groomed elder sitting in the sunroom of the AL is mom in her dotage.