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I have posted on here many times now about the situation with my Mother-in-law. She has dementia (moderate) and is a type 2 diabetic who requires insulin injections 4 times daily. She has no short term memory at all and therefore she firmly believes that she is perfectly fine and completely independent. She is surprised, confused and angered (many times each day) when my husband, myself or the home health aide show up at her door to check her sugar and assist her in taking her insulin. She really has no idea that she is ill even though we have to tell her everyday (a few times). Her dementia was worsened to include delusions. Yesterday she swore that she spoke with two of her doctors, and both said she was cleared to drive (although she could not name them). We know now that we must take the next step to insure her safety. We have finally found an acceptable (all though not perfect) Assisted Living facility that can provide her the care she needs and still allow her to remain social with people close to her age (she is 66). We have POA. We just have no idea how to tell her or how to get her there. What if she refuses? Anytime we have mentioned it before she becomes very angry. Keep in mind that anything we say will be lost within 20-30 minutes, so even if we convince her of the danger she is in she will forget before we get there. Do we just have to take her there under some ruse? Do we need to medicate her? Can we legaly make her go? I really need some solid advice from someone who has been through this.

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A couple of points. Obtaining guardianship is not always easy and can be somewhat expensive. Many care facilities only need to see a POA and a letter from the treating doc to admit an elder. Check with the facility.

You may not be able to LEGALLY force her into care but it's clearly time. Depending on her state of mind you may be able to finagle her into care. It's done many times on a TRIAL basis that becomes permanent. You may be surprised how quickly she settles in. And I agree with Rainmom, it can take a crisis to force the issue. I'm just waiting for my Dads dementia to worsen to the point that I can ease him into care. We're just not quite there yet.

Also, is assited living going to meet her needs? Have the facility send someone out to evaluate her. She may need memory care with her level of dementia. Good luck.
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A POA is not empowered to make her move. Only a Guardian with a court order can do that. So you see an attorney and file for Guardianship. We took mom on tours of various facilities and one talked her into a one month trial. She decided to stay on her own. Ask the MD about medications for the transition. If you can convince her this is like going on a cruise, with meals and linens and activities and bus trips, she might want to go.
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Unless you have you MIL declared legally incompetent and become her guardian you can not force her to move. In my mothers case it took a fall followed by a hospital stay and three weeks in rehab to get her to move to AL. Mom hated the rehab so much she would have agreed to move into a garden shed to get out of there! Unfortunately it frequently takes some sort of crisis to get elderly folks into a living situation that best meets their needs.
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Thank you all for your answers. Just a little update... We took my MIL to a new doctor last week and thank goodness the doctor was able to put her on more Metformin and a more simple insulin regimine where she only needs 1 shot a day! This was great news after being told multiple times by her old Doctor that it couldn't be done. We were able to lock up her insulin where only we have access to it when we go over to administer her shot. This of course doesn't change the need for assisted living. She is still not completely safe living alone but at least she doesn't have access to the insulin anymore. There's nothing scarier than someone with dementia administering a medication that could kill them!! This one change has made caring for her a lot easier, given us a little peace of mind, and bought us a little more time to find the right place for her.
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Her Neurologist and Neuro Psychologist have both agreed that she should not be on her own so I will check with the AL facility to see if they can admit her with just the POA. If not, is there a way to get emergency guardianship? She is in extreme danger and the home health aide from medicaid is no help at all. Just yesterday she let my MIL take 20 units of insulin when she only needed 5. It's a miracle she's not in a coma.
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If those two MD's give you letters stating she is not competent and you have a DPOA (not just a POA) that includes health care proxy (HCP) the facility will evaluate her for appropriate placement. That's actually part of the tour, we found out, they talk to her to get an idea of how functional she is. They include lunch with a tour and that allows them to see if she can feed herself. Start touring, enjoy the free lunch.
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The court is going to only allow the least restrictive form of assistance to the person, so if you can accomplish what you need to as a POA, you don't need guardianship. You also need a lot of proofs and paperwork to obtain guardianship. It was a $4,000 effort to get with my mom and it was uncontested.

Take mom on a tour and focus on how pretty it is, how nice people are, how convenient all the amenities are that she doesn't have at home. How safe it is, and how very much there will be to look forward to and how much care she will get. The director, my husband, & I did an award winning sales job. We specifically focused on the things that had scared mom alone in her house.

We talked about how her furniture would look in there.

After lunch, after a tour, we closed the deal. Which apartment do you want mom, this one or that one? I had the paperwork all ready to go and the check signed. The unfortunate thing was the move in date had to be 4 weeks out.
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