My mother is very lonely. She refuses in-home help. She refuses assisted-living. Her friends are all dying. She has no hobbies. She doesn’t enjoy reading anymore she just stares at the television. She doesn’t initiate phone calls to anyone. People rarely call her. She has very few visitors. She expects me to be over there all the time, but my visits aren’t pleasant because I am the eating and medicine police. She doesn’t take her medicine without prompting. Now she has started telling me she’s taking it, when she has not. She doesn’t want to eat. I order delivery on a daily basis. She picks at it and that’s it. I don’t know what to do with her and I’m feeling very guilty because I know she’s lonely. I work part time and have a lot of activities. I don’t know how to cheer her up or get her in a positive mode. She is stage 4 dementia/Alzheimer’s and does not think anything is wrong. She’s just not as sharp as she used to be. She does not cook. She won’t even microwave. I’m afraid of doing anything that will make her even more dependent on me. I just don’t know what to do. As I’m reading some of the other comments, I’m guessing I have to let things fall apart before I can take any action. Otherwise it’s going to be a royal battle. What she really wants is for me to quit everything, move in with her and take care of all of her current needs. She refuses in-home assistance because she said she doesn’t need help. But she does.
If that diagnosis is legitimate, it means that she does require “management” to be safe and live whatever should be her “best” life.
”Dementia” is comparable to “pregnant”. You either HAVE IT, or YOU DON’T.
Either way, as her “child”, you may all or partly responsible for her physical welfare. But you ARE NOT, and CANNOT BE responsible for how she FEELS about what you do or do not do on her behalf.
“Dementia” MEANS that neither her logical thinking brain NOR her emotional feeling brain are working correctly, and dementia, THE ILLNESS, is PROGRESSIVE and UNTREATABLE.
What she wants, what she expects, what she likes or doesn’t like, what she thinks about her own circumstances, ARE NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY OR BURDEN, and you cannot allow your guilt to be what motivates your decision making.
If, as you pursue safe, humane, and ESSENTIAL CARE for her, she has tantrums, cries, acts clingy or “more dependent” on you, HER behaviors will do nothing but make YOUR efforts harder.
I have had to place TWO women who had been the center of my life since my birth. The hardest part of that process FOR ME, was realizing that the people I had loved and been cared for and trusted WERE GONE, and that those two people needed ME to care for THEM.
Do your research. Find out what services, care settings and geriatric resources are available to you, then pick those that will work best for her and for you AND USE THEM.
AND THAT IS ALL YO CAN DO. If she acts in a way that is so distressing and disturbing to you that pushes you beyond YOUR TOLERANCE, GET HELP FOR YOURSELF, and stick with it until you are able to see yourself as being able to do the best you can, but NO MORE THAN YOUR BEST.
In geriatric management there are often NO GOOD CHOICES, and it becomes your job to choose “the best of the worst”. DO THAT.
Finally, use her financial resources, if you can access them, to do for her what she needs. Find out. Do NOT “quit everything”. You are an independent human and a caregiver, and her decisions about your life are clouded by dementia, and should NOT be accepted by you as doing a good thing for either of you.
Do the research and know how to get what she needs without sacrificing yourself. If you can do that, this situation CAN get better for you both.
Thank you for your response
My mother did not want to live in Memory Care either, but she had no choice. I had to move her there from regular Assisted Living when her mobility issues along with moderate dementia became too much for the AL to handle. She insisted there was 'nothing wrong with her' but there was. She was not capable of managing her apartment any longer in AL, so there was no other choice BUT to move her to a shrunken down world where there'd be no decisions for her to make anymore. She wasn't best pleased about it, but that's life for an elder with dementia that's advancing. A no - win situation for ALL concerned.
Wishing you the best of luck getting your mother placed now, before an accident happens.
Has she been seen by a geriatric psychiatrist for a workup? Has she been prescribed antidepressants and won't take them?
I would not be the food and med police. Visit with, tell her how much you love her and let her make her own decisions about what to treat with meds.
You are more valuable to her as a child than as an enforcer.
"Totally denies depression, but yes she is depressed. We are giving her medication for it, but I don’t think it’s working. We’ve had the work up done by geriatric psychiatrist. He pegged her as a controlling, manipulative little thing. We have gone over her results with her several times. She refuses to acknowledge. I feel sorry for her. She’s totally screwed if something happens to me. It’s a helpless feeling."
You don't get ant results by going over a psych report with a dementia patient.
She is not going to change her behavior. However, if YOU change YOUR behavior, something will change.
Your mother seems to have your cornered.
If you leave that corner, will she simply stop eating and drinking and taking meds?
Perhaps.
Thn she can be hospitalized for self-neglect, declared incompetent and placed.
That might be a good change.
And even if you ARE the only family member left, you STILL have nothing to feel guilty about.
Mom does not have the mental capacity to make decision for herself.
If you are POA YOU are the one that needs to make decisions for her that will keep her safe.
If Memory Care is not an option then 24/7 caregivers would be the other solution.
It does not matter what she "wants" it is what she needs.
You say she doesn't cook. What about the morning she wakes up and decides that she does want to cook? What about the evening she decides to go for a walk...and does not know how to get back home? What about the battery that needs changing or the bulb that is burned out and she falls from a chair or ladder...when would you find her? (although this could happen with or without dementia)
Since she has dementia you don't have to wait for things to fall apart before you make a decision. If she did not have a diagnosis and were legally able to make decisions then yes you have to wait until something forces a change.
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