My Grandmother is 85. She lives alone. In November she feel down a flight of stairs resulting in a displaced fracture in her C1 neck vertebrae (this will never heal, requiring her to have a C collar on for the rest of her life). She also fractured her back in numerous places, those have since healed. She was hospitalized from Nov 24th through Dec 30 between rehab and a nursing home and back to hospital from a undetected UTI resulting in extreme delirium for a week. She has been home since Dec 30. At first we had round the care help. She was getting better as each week progressed. Able to do most things her self with limited assitance. For the past month she has declined rapidly. All of our help has been "dried up". I have been primarily taking care of her, but only because I had a hysterectomy in Jan so I am still off of work. I am returning to work next Tues. She has been getting extremely forgetful. Not taking her meds properly, even though I have themy dosed out and organized for her. She's not eating or drinking enough. She has suffered 2 more falls in the past 2 weeks, one resulted in a brief visit to the ER because she hit her head and is on blood thinners and still has a small subderal hematoma from the fall in Nov. We have been trying to make it work. She wants to stay at home, but I feel it is no longer safe for her. She refuses to move in with myself or her only living son. What steps for I need to take to get her qualified for a nursing home? The main reason she doesn't want to go is because she is afraid the will take all of her money she has saved all her life to leave to family. I do not care about money. I want her to be safe and taken care of properly. She is showing signs of dementia much more in the last month then before. She is being treated currently for another UTI, and it's been over a week since treatment started so I don't belive that the infection is causing all of her mental problems. I have a appt with her PCP on Monday to follow up from the last fall and UTI. What questions do I ask? What test do we need to have done? If we can get her diagnosed with Dementia does she automatically qualify for a nursing home? We are not interested in assisted livingredients. She has too many health problems and needs 24/7 care. We have been trying to let her make the desicon that she needs to go, but it's becoming too unsafe for her to wait much longer. I hate to "give up" on her and force her to go, but I am the only relative close to her to help, and once I return to work it will be very hard for me to care for her the way she needs...it will be impossible. Help please.
