My mom has had memory issues for a few years now. She lives alone and will not have anyone ( including me and my brother) stay in her home to help her. She refuses to admit there is any problem. She claims she will die in her house. We have been trying to let her stay home by going over a couple times a week, doing her shopping, filling her pill box,, cleaning her house , washing her clothes etc. We tried to get someone in to clean, she threw them out. We tried a pill dispenser, she unplugged it and put it out on the porch. She says no one is going to tell her what to do. As time as gone by she is getting worse. she no longer takes any of her meds on her own. She will still take them on the days I am there and hand them to her, but I work full time. I feel she is no longer safe by herself and tried to talk to her about it. She would have none of it. I worried as her CHF is getting worse as are all her conditions because she won't medicate. How do I start the process of placing her somewhere against her will? I am newly divorced and can not afford a lawyer. She has become very secretive about her finances and I don't even know what she can afford etc. She will still let me write a check from her account when I find disconnect/cancellation notices at her house. She lie to everyone including her doctors, telling them she's fine and I'm full of it. So can anyone tell me a few first steps? Thanks You !! I appreciate any advice I can get.
Thanks Again,
Sue
Here is my experience. During my dad's recent hospital stay after a fall, I let the docs & social worker know right away I would absolutely not be picking him up and taking him home. They agreed with me that home was not safe and managed to help me admit him to a nursing facility that I chose. I felt really great at having managed this after trying to convince him for a year that he wasn't safe at home. He did make some improvements at the facility, but every other day, he threatened to leave. He'd call the cleaning lady and everyone he could think of, offering money to come pick him up. No one would. Everyone knew he shouldn't go back home. And so he began threatening to call a cab. This went on for over a month, but he always forgot or didn't follow through. The staff told me all along that if he managed to make it out the door, they couldn't physically restrain him. Well, he had learned the exit code to the door, and had been making attempts at using it. One day he was successful, managed to get a cab, and made it home, so now we're right back in that mess again.
My dad is delusional, paranoid, suffers from hallucinations and is unable to participate in his own care... I could go on and on. Unfortunately he has never been declared incompetent and I have consulted with a couple of professionals (social workers, an attorney) and I understand that my chances of gaining guardianship are not great. That seems really screwed up to me, but it is what it is.
My personal decision was to back away and stop helping. At all. Like not even to pick up groceries or pay over-due bills. That's what he wants and according to the current system he legally has the right to make that choice. It may lead to his death if he ends up deteriorating like he was before he went to the facility. I have to accept that, because like your mom, he has stated to me that he wants to die at home. I hope for everyone's sake that he can go soon and not suffer long.
If my dad ever admits that he needs help and WANTS my help, then I will help, but only if he gives me the legal ability to do so and agrees to move to a facility where he will be safe so that I'm not constantly sick with worry. I can't live like that anymore.
Make your own decision as to whether you want to keep trying to help as you are, pursue guardianship, or just let her go until she wants help (or dies first!), but no matter what you do, DO NOT feel guilty, you clearly want whats best, but sometimes the system works against the family and you can only do so much.
Also, for what it's worth, you CAN call adult protective services on her. This service works both ways. These people know when they are given a line of BS from the "elder" adult and this will give you documentation that you are trying to do right by her.
Good luck and best wishes, I've been in your shoes.
We (her children) did not get involved. We are all 1500 miles away. Her 50 yo grandson handled the move. It was easier that way.
Also, my mother was not telling her doctor everything and saying she was "fine." However, my mother wasn't really lying. I was with her at her doctor's appointment where her doctor told her she was going to probably die if she didn't get help. In that appointment, he'd ask her if she was falling and she'd say "no." I'd remind her that she had and she'd think about it and then say something like, 'Oh, yes, I forget. I'm sorry." In some cases, she just didn't remember, in others, didn't associate what the doctor was asking with her own symptoms, even though he was putting it in simple terms.
She was secretive partly out of embarrassment, I think, and partly because she wanted to avoid conflict. Yours might be doing the same thing.
But, for us to get her to move, it took all of us telling her that she was basically out of money to fix the house, her health wasn't good and she'd literally die without more help, her doctor telling her the same thing -- it took years and I'm worried that a few more weeks of it and she wouldn't have recovered (fortunately, she made the decision in-time and is getting proper medical treatment, but could have easily been a very different ending).
Whatever your Mom is doing, somehow you have to see if you can make the decisions for her. She's going to possibly be quite angry and resentful, possibly forever, but if she can no longer take care of herself and her living quarters with her own abilities and finances, it is time to find a way to step-in.
It's one thing to die in one's own house, peacefully, in one's sleep, proud to have lived an independent life and having relatively good health, otherwise. It's another for the situation to kill you, where you go into a decline because you can't take care of yourself, any longer.
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