My husband's mother has mid-stage dementia. a neurologist that first diagnosed it told my sister-in-law that with the type of dementia that she has, she will not know that anything is wrong with her. Well, this fact has come back to haunt us! She really is not aware. She THINKS that she is cooking, cleaning, bathing, etc. The reality is that the family is doing ALL of this for her.
Now, here's the biggest problem: my mother-in-law lives alone, in the condo that she and my father-in-law bought before he passed away. We have tried to bring in help for her - she threw an absolute fit in front of the nurse that had come to assess her, so that idea was tabled. Things continued to progress, so my husband and his sister tried to convince her to move into an assisted living apartment so that people would be around to at least help when needed. AGAIN, she threw an absolute fit and refused to even consider it!
My question is: has anyone else dealt with this kind of problem and been able to get the person to move or at least allow a homecare-giver to come in?? If so, what worked for you? Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated!
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We have contacted meals-on-wheels and are going to arrange for food to be delivered a few times a week, and a company called VRI to have her medication monitored. It is an automatic monitored pill dispenser. The only thing we can't figure out how to monitor is the motrin. She gets frequent mirgranes (which she has had much less frequently since she's been here) and has 800 mg prescription strength motrin. We found out that she had been doubling up on them and think that's what landed her in the hospital, but aren't positive. We've been monitoring them while she's here, but need to know if anyone knows of a pill system that will only open every 6 hours, but not alarm her, so that if she doesn't take it, she doesn't have to.
We just don't know what else to do, as she's still somewhat competent and certain things and forgets other things.
If anyone has any other sugestions, we could surely use them.
She no longer knows how to cook for herself, so we shop for her and see that she has sandwhiches and other food items that she can eat without any required preparation
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