My 93 yr old mother has been independent until about 3 yrs ago when she fell and broke her wrist and had fallen and broken her hip the year before. So she went to nursing home for a while till I brought her here to a very nice assisted living home. She is insisting she can live on her own -NOT... and has threatened to not pay this next month payment/rent and that she is leaving the place. I am at my wits end trying to deal with her. What do I do to make sure she doesn't leave this place - for one thing she uses a walker and can not get very far on her own. Can her mood changes be part of the on-come of dementia? Help! I can't even think straight any more. She is impossible.
She was unhappy at first, the first 3 months were bad. She seemed to settle down after that. She has been there a year and 4 months. There are still things that are tough because I am the one that always gets called, I do her laundry, she always thinks I should be doing more, she is unappreciative also...and 93. She's never going to get better so I go and do what I have to do and when she gets belligerent, I leave, basically a timeout for her.
The horror I have now is her money will not last as long as I expected so I am getting ready now to figure out next steps because I cannot take her back in.
Not visiting so often is a great idea. Mom waits for your and your sister’s visits and saves up all the vitriol for both of you. My mom would be nasty and the next time I visited, she would have written me a shaky note saying how much she loved me. I still have one of those notes somewhere and if and when I come across it, I’m going to completely lose it. Not visiting will leave Mom to her own devices and she may decide to venture out to activities. At my mom’s facility, the aides would come and get the residents and not give them much choice. Mom really enjoyed bingo and when her macular degeneration got too bad, an aide would sit by her and help her.
When you do visit, if Mom starts the Hit Parade, look at your watch (or phone), make up some meeting you forgot, and leave. Good luck. I feel ya, sister.
If shes a flight risk, she needs monitoring. My mom wore an ankle monitor, but after she cut two off, we had a meeting and moved her to the Memory Care locked unit.
Mood changes, especially those that come on suddenly, can be indicative of a urinary tract infection. My mom had raging ones and became combative. They tested her monthly.
Was your mom involved in chosing this place? She could be angry about that if she wasn’t. Maybe speak with the staff and ask if they could encourage her to participate in their activities. If she feels wanted, she may not be in such a hurry to leave.
Good luck. I remember all to well what having a cantankerous mother in a facility was like.
(And really nothing to complain about) She has not let go that she "wants a place of her own" and there is no way in hell that she is able to take care of herself. I've been reading a lot of the forum posts on this site and have figured she is a true narcissist. What she shows to everyone - is that she is this sweet lady and to my sister and I she is nasty and just sucks the energy out of us. I am envious of others that have a loving relationship with their mothers...It's really hard to like her when she is so ungrateful and unappreciative of all we do for her.
Right now I've decided I just need to not go as often to see her (was going a least twice a week) I need the distance for my own piece of mind.
Really stressed about how to deal with her at the end of the month....with her threats about leaving, I know she can't go far on a walker but she can complicate things for sure.