Just lost my dad 3 months ago. My mom (86 yrs.old) is living at home alone now. She has memory lapses from time to time, but sometimes I think she is in the first stages of dementia--not Alzheimers. She insists that my younger brother and his wife have gone in her house when she was at the hospital with my father and rifled through papers and stolen policies, jewelry, and coins. She complains to me daily about this situation. I have suggested she go talk with someone before this drives her crazy. Well, she hasn't. Last weekend she openly accused both my younger brother and his wife of theft. My older brother has pleaded with my mom to have a change of heart, because the younger is so kind-hearted that he would give you the shirt off his back. Now, the younger brother is extremely upset that his mother can think so lowly of him. He doesn't want to go visit her when he feels he is not loved. My older brother says she has lost a son, and he is on the younger's side in this. My older brother is so upset that he says he isn't even going to put up a Christmas tree this year for the family holiday celebration. Then my older brother says that I will have to be the peace-maker and try to get my mom and my younger brother back together in order to hold this family together. I don't know what to do! This has me so upset my health is being affected. Both brothers live in the same town as my mom. I live in another state, so I cannot be there 24/7 to follow my mom around. I feel torn into pieces.
I know it's hurtful to your brother to be accused of stealing from your mother and I think it's fine that the older brother take up for the younger brother but your mom has dementia and that is the big picture. Of course your brother didn't steal anything and I'm sure that the mom he knows would never accuse him of such a thing but people with dementia accuse loved ones of stealing all the time. It wouldn't be dementia if the person didn't accuse at least one family member of stealing.
Your brother(s) needs to learn about the illness. It's not personal, it's the disease and the family becoming all upset over who said what to whom isn't helping your mom or your stress level. If your brothers can't bring themselves to learn about this your family will implode and all that will be left is your mom, standing alone, in the middle of family wreckage.
People with dementia obsess and it's enough to drive someone crazy. They accuse family members of all kinds of things and they accuse strangers of all kinds of things and they are very persuasive because to them it's very real and not a made up story that originates from a diseased brain.
Your family has to get some understanding pronto before it's destroyed.
Now, with that said, I don't mean to dump absolutely everything onto the ones in-town, but this is one of those things best done face-to-face. And, being the oldest, he might have some clout with her (I say this being the oldest - this just works in my family).
But remember, *lots* of people DO steal from their aging parents. My brother stole all of my father's assets and no one really knew about it until later, as he had lived with my father and was on his accounts.
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