I am the DPOA for my mom. She is in end stages of Parkinson's and was in a nursing home. She made the remarks she would rather kill herself than live like this anymore and the nursing home told me she had to go to a geriatric psychiatric unit for evaluation. She has been there over a week and she is just declining and I don't see where this place is helping her. As DPOA do I have the right to take her out of there and bring her home?
I expect your mother is in a NH because you were unable to take care of her at home. How fortunate you are to live close by to be able to see her so often! I would call in Hospice to evaluate her. This would give her an extra layer of care in her end stage of Parkinson's. I would also set up a care plan to address the suicide talk, so they don’t try to send her back to the psych ward. The facility doctor could prescribe something for the hallucinations also.
Several people have told you to bring her home. I may have missed something, but I understood your mother’s talk of “not wanting to live like this anymore” as referring to her Parkinson’s disease, not specifically the nursing home. It sounds to me that you have an ideal situation with you living so close. I remember a poster who had been caring for his wife for sometime. She had Parkinson’s or Alzheimers and was end stage. He was exhausted and burnt out prior to the placement but described how he would come to be with her every day and was able to go home and sleep uninterrupted. This enabled him to be that more present for her at the end of her life.
Please let us know how your mother and you and your family are doing. I am praying for you.
GOOD LUCK dear.
The truth is that any time a patient starts making remarks about "killing themselves," a facility is obligated to obtain a psychiatric evaluation, because that patient is considered a "suicide risk." The NH was covering themselves, legally. If they ignored it and the patient did manage to kill themselves, the State could come in and shut them down.
Have you obtained a list of the medications she is on? If not, you need to do that immediately and review the meds with the nurse there. If there has been a big change in her medications, it could be contributing to her decline.
You could take her "out of there and bring her home" - but are you really equipped to deal with that? What if the hallucinations are all part of her late-stage Parkinson's and she will continue to hallucinate in your home?
even those deep in Parkinson’s often have times of complete clarity. Imagine realizing you predicament in one of those moments....wouldn’t you prefer to find another way?
so many places acknowledge the right to die with dignity on their own time table.
so, this NH had her moved to psych care....
imagine this was you. Wouldn’t you see that there is no one going to help you and the situation is actually hopeless. The only thing left to do is just give up and see if you can will yourself to die.
if, under these circumstances, my Mom had told me she wanted to die.....I would have figured out how and where she could legally be allowed to do this....and taken her there.
my father in law did exactly that....only back then... the place you had to go was the Netherlands.
At least in the US, it might be that the fortunate person is the one who can get through life without being sued.
Make sure that the nurses have not been given your Mom Haldol or another antipsychotic. Sometimes, doctors and nurses will lie. They give medications like this that lead to further brain damage.
Once, you have your Mom home, make sure to get her on MCT oil, Vitamins B1, B3, B12, D, and C. This will help her brain health.
Why are you talking about supplements? Supplements are for people that are not dying! Dying people deserve to die with dignity and to be as comfortable as they can be. That means without pain! Whatever it takes to accomplish that, morphine or anything else, give it to them.