My 94-year-old mother in law still lives alone in her own home. We live right around the corner from her. Physically she is in good shape and still takes care of the housework and her personal care. But she is becoming more confused as time goes on and is requiring more and more of our time. Her doctor says this is just "normal dementia that comes with age," and has not offered much in the way of help or advice. She is very lonely and sits and cries often because her husband, friends and simblings are all dead (can't really blame her there). She tends to fixate on this which makes the confusion worse as she becomes more upset. This makes her extremely needy and anxious and she calls us several times a day to tell us she is "just sitting there all alone." She is no longer able to handle her meds, my husband or I go there each day to give her pills. And she barely eats if left to her own. Even using phone is starting to be challenging for her.
The main problem is this neediness is constant and my husband and I have no freedom to be away from our home for long (fortunately he is able to work at home). Even a couple of hours to go out dinner is interrupted by phone calls for no logical reason. A vacation, even a short one, is out of the question. This is causing a great deal of stress in our lives and is starting to negatively affect our marriage. We feel that she could benefit from an assisted living environment where there are other people and activites to occupy her time. Of course she is dead set against this, but her dementia makes it difficult for us to discuss this with her. How do we know when it's time for her to no longer live alone? We don't want to wait for the crisis to happen (like a fall or other injury) but also don't want to force her into something she does not want. Looking for advice and others experience. We just don't know what to do. Thanks.
And you're right, you can't force her. At her age she may not even be able to live in assisted living for long before she needs a nursing home. And moving her twice in a short amount of time will send her over the edge. Moving is very, very difficult on elderly people. Oftentimes they don't bounce completely back from a move.
If you can't talk her into assisted living you may have no other choice but to wait for an emergency. But get your ducks in a row now. Has she designated you POA? If not, get that done now. Find a facility that you like and talk with them. You don't want to be figuring all of this out while your mom sits in a hospital bed waiting to be discharged.
In the meantime, keep talking up the assisted living. Getting her to tour a couple of places is a great idea. And there are different opinions on this but my opinion is that it's OK to tell your mom that you and your husband are not able to continue helping her as much and that you'd feel much better if she were somewhere so you wouldn't have to worry about her all the time. I cared for my dad in my home for 5 years and I call this the "Help me help you" approach. It always worked with my dad. If I was banging my head against the wall about something regarding my dad I'd finally just go to him and tell him that I was frustrated and could he please help me do what was best for him. And he would. It worked every time.
Keep talking to your mom. Maybe she'll agree just so she can stop talking about it.
Everything else can be scheduled or monitored: pills in a box, or drop by to medicate, baths, house chores, pay bills online and monitor accounts.
Unless she has been declared incompetent and you have gone through the legal process to become her guardians, you can't force her to leave her house. But you are perfectly free to make decisions about your own life. For example, you can decide that you are going on a two-week vacation and you can arrange suitable care for her while you are gone. You can give her the phone number of the care provider and she can call them instead of you. Unfortunately this "tough love" approach is easier to apply when the parent does not have dementia. It is theoretically possible in your situation, but emotionally extremely difficult.
I hope you can find the strength to at least stop enabling her dependence on you. For heaven's sake, go out to dinner! Is there someone you could forward your phone calls to, who would only answer if it is your MIL and then reassure her about when you will be home?
She thinks she can stay at home on her own, and she can -- as long as she has you at her instant beck and call. (whatever a beck is -- :D ) But that is not fair to you.
I hope having lunch at a few ALFs -- or going to play bingo or do crafts -- may help your MIL be open to change without a catastrophe forcing it.
No where is it written that we have to stop living because our elderly parents need us more and more. Yet that is what happens, isn't it? Somehow or another we lose our lives in order to help an elderly parent retain theirs. This site is full of warnings about that. And suggestions/comments on how to get our lives back. The black hole of need can suck us right in.
I would be interested to hear the story of how it happened to be her own mother ended up in a NH instead of living out her days at home with her own daughter on 24/7 call. She didn't do that for her mother, yet she expects her son and DIL to do it for her.
See All Answers