Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Is her car insurance company still insuring her after these incidents? If not, that would be a no excuses, just the facts reason to pull the car keys and sell the car and be done with that aspect.
If she can't drive, maybe she'll be more open to an ALF.
My aunt fell, ended up in rehab, but also was finally diagnosed with dementia after years of worrisome behaviors. My cousins convinced her to move into an ALF while she recuperated, then proceeded to get her house ready to sell. They had POA. Yes, she was disappointed but eventually didn't take it as bad as they expected. Now they are getting ready to move her 600 miles away to where they all live so they can help.
I'll be blunt and say it. You have to lie and trick them. It feels awful too if you put yourself in their shoes. The only other choice is to humiliate and destroy them in court filing for guardianship.
So we convinced my mother to move into a memory care facility by stressing how great it would be. She took the tour and signed the paperwork without understanding the concept that she was now going to be in a locked facility. We had DPOA already done and she was already diagnosed with severe dementia.
She complained for a very long time that she wanted to go home, that lasted the entire time until she died. But she couldn't handle her daily living requirements such as using the bathroom properly, much less anything more complex.
Whatever you are seeing, car accidents and the like, realize that what is actually going on is much worse as far as her daily confusion and lack of understanding of what she is doing. They become a danger to themselves the same as a toddler, and you would never leave a toddler alone, you don't leave parents with dementia alone for the exact same reasons.
If you're not going to move her close to you then you need to have an understanding with the facility that your father can step in and handle stuff as a proxy. All kinds of stuff is going to crop up unexpectedly.
You learn to change the subject when they get going on issues such as I want to go home, divert their attention, and make up lies like tell them their pipes have burst and the plumbers are on vacation and she will have to wait until all this work is done to go back home. That's what you say if she refuses to let you change the subject, but most of the time it is pretty easy to divert the attention of someone with dementia.
One of my uncle's doctor said, let me ask you, how do you want to be treated ? Then ask the person you are making decisions for how they want to be treated.
My uncle didn't want to be lied to or conned. He was short on memory due to his stroke. We took small steps in conversations. Every important decision was in front of his doctor and his social advocate. My uncle insisted that compromise could be had. He gave up his keys so long as I promised to get him to his appointments. He often tried to wonder , but his efforts often impeded that. His ambulation became brief.
I would suggest to have the talk in front of unbias staff and professionals. This is her life, and your ability to guide HER to HER life health choices.
At this point I'd be leery of signing any admissions. Seek attorney advisal. You are financially responsible for her once you sign on . I specifically refused to sign the financial culpability form that the Facility hide amongst the mounds of paperwork. When they tried, I point blank said, if this is not a legal form required by the insurance company then I'm not signing it.
Thank you all for your helpful replies. She's in the memory care part of the ALF (and today I heard she is calling them the Gestapo). My father reminded me that the doctor in the hospital would not release her except directly to a facility due to the dementia. The latest is that she is threatening to have my father arrested for putting her there. (For years she has gone into this whole tirade of wanting to sue people.) She has also screamed, "I can't hear, I can't see, I might as well just kill myself!" on more than one occasion.
This is so reminiscent of when HER mother had dementia. I was living in FL and so was my grandmother (her mother). When my aunt (who had POA) asked me and my husband to take her car and keep it at our house, I received 42 messages on the answering machine: "You stole my car, I'm calling the police." "Give me my car back." "Where is my car?"
At one point back then, when my mom came to visit her, my grandmother threw her handbag down the laundry chute and bit her arm. She called me crying to come pick her up as she couldn't take being around her mother anymore.
So it looks like I'm in for quite a ride, if my grandmother's behavior was any indication of the future I'm going to have with own mother.
A doctor told my mom that she could not live alone any longer.
If you cannot arrange for a doc to tell her this, you will have to tell her.
But the longer you put it off, the better. She might grow to like having three meals prepared for her, and having her meds dosed regularly might make her feel better. So, give her time to adjust. But eventually, you will have to tell her that she cannot live by herself now.
You could prepare a list of precipitating events, and you could read them off to her. She has probably forgotten some of them. But you will not be able to convince her.
You know she is safer there than living alone. She is in a protected environment where she needs to be. She is a hazard to herself and others if she drives. She is likely forgetting to eat or take her meds. You will have to be the parent in this new relationship.
We are in a similar situation with my father-in-law. We've been telling him that it's not safe for him to live alone anymore, especially in his former house, which is more of a log cabin perched on a very steep river bank. He accepts it for the moment, curses his aging body, etc., but then will mention "when I get back home, I'll do X" later in the conversation.
I liken it to the anecdotes I've read about telling dementia/Alzheimer's patients about the death of a loved one over and over.
Please don't do this - it just forces the grief and shock onto them over and over again, as painfully as the first time. Instead, if they ask why a deceased loved one doesn't visit, just say, "Well, you know, she is getting pretty old and doesn't travel much anymore, but she sends her love". If they ask what the deceased loved one is doing, answer similarly: "She's fine, but you know how it is when you get older and can't go places as much as you'd like, but she said to tell you hello".
I did this with a stroke-survivor cousin in his late eighties. He had memory lapses and asked me how my mother (his aunt) was getting along - she had died ten or so years previously. He and his late wife, who lived two states away, had visited her during her last illness and wrote and called her regularly. But all memory of that sad time was gone now, and it would have been cruel to have tried to reorient him and cause him repeated grief. Fortuitously, on that visit (which turned out to be the last time I saw my cousin), I'd brought him some homemade crunchy cheese treats, using my late mother's recipe. So it was easy to say that they were from my mother, and that was certainly at least partially true.
Agree with trying what several here have suggested, asking her doc to tell her it’s time. My father was diagnosed several years ago with congestive heart failure, and as soon as the doc said his heart could go out at any time, including behind the wheel of a car, dad never drove again. That helped in convincing him and Mom to move several hundred miles to assisted living near me, I was able to offer (being newly retired) unlimited drives in my car with me driving. Don’t know if you’d like your mom to move nearer you, but that was a big incentive, to have a driver.
Hard to understand until you live it and then compounded by Covid...
I moved back into the room I had when I was 9 and only visit my house to pick up mail and water...
Cant fault the person but I’m having a very hard time with family that has all but vanished...
One day at a time is what I say often and a tracker is my new best friend...
Setting up a geofence sends me an alert...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
