My loving, sweet, 82 year mom has dementia. She is also a survivor of abuse and still living with her abuser, my step-father. My younger brother and I invoked the help of Adult Services when we found my mother living in filth, her toenails curled beneath her toes, she had not been bathed in months, there was minimal food to eat in their home and she was left alone for hours on most days while her husband was out buying new motorcycles, riding with his friends and having meals out. They have money to work with but he's busy spending it as fast as he can before he kicks the bucket. When Adult Services dropped the ball my younger brother and I hired an attorney to help us appoint a neutral (not a family member) guardian and someone to handle her finances so she could be moved into a care facility. When they learned we were talking with an attorney Adult Protective Services legal council threatened to resist and we were advised to back away from the effort by the attorney we had hired. We were told that this action was based on the history of my brothers mental illness. Question 1: why should that have anything to do with getting outside help? He was not asking to be her guardian. Now, my mother has been moved to an independent living situation with her abusive/neglectful husband. The only thing that has changed is the environment. My younger brother and his wife see mom about 3-4 times a week (I live out of state) and always find her sitting in her own excrement, toenails painfully curled behind her toes, no bath...etc. Her husband is spending money on model trains, a snazzy jazzy scooter for himself - as always - and has not made one effort to provide additional help to my mother. I am livid that Adult Protective Services considers their job done, what can we do now?
You will need to visit your mom (extended visit) and set the plan in motion.
You brother needs to agree with what you want to do to make this work.
P.S.Not sure why any past illness of your brother's would impede what needs to be done with your mom.
Md10194. I agree with jeannegibbs. Divorce the man. 71 is still young. Your life does not sound pleasant and it is doubtful that it will get better. Living on your own has to be better than what you are living with now.
Would you really want guardianship, even if it were free?
Have you considered consulting a divorce attorney?
As for the finances, there is another form of neglect when you spend so much money on yourself that you neglect your spouse who desperately needs proper care and is not getting it, and it shows. If this turns out to be the truth then it sounds like the abuser in the picture happens to be greedy.
If abuse and neglect turn out to be true and if I were you personally, I would catch the ailing patient home alone and take them to the hospital and get an evaluation done. If they confirm your suspicions, I wouldn't take them back to that house on discharge, take them back with you out of state and file for guardianship while they're still in the hospital, and have the hospital help you in any possible way they can. Yes, if the patient is being abused, the first place you want to take them is to the hospital and then home with you on discharge. If the patient is being abused don't friend them back into that environment by no means, get them out and far away from there. This is exactly what I would've done had I been you and had the money and resources to spare. I say this as an abuse survivor myself, and I know what it is to be abused and badly neglected. Therefore, being a survivor myself, I would take a fellow human being out of what I myself survived. This may be controversial, but you don't know what you do unto you yourself are lucky to even be alive from life-threatening prolonged abuse of a little more than a decade. If you happen to call APS and they won't help, they may actually be expecting close family members to take care of it, which is where you may actually have to take the first step and get her out of there
Second, APS will turn the tables on YOU, wanting to know why YOU have not done anything. If you are POA or HCP they may go after YOU for neglect. If you are neither POA nor HCP and you are calling in from far away, they will not work with you. That's the law.
I wish you the best. If your mom is lucid enough to describe what goes on, that would help, but it sounds like she isn't capable of that.
Is the attorney still involved?
Good luck with all this.