The 85 year old female ALZ person lives with her 90 year old husband of 65 years. They still live in their own home. She was diagnosed 3 years ago with early stage ALZ and has progressed to mid-stage. She is not eating well, gets no exercise, does very little if any bathing and does not believe there is anything wrong with her. She thinks everyone is out to get her. She asks the same questions over and over. She still knows her family members but not sure she knows everyone by name. It has been recommended by several doctors, social worker and their pastor that they receive home care or move to an assisted living home. Again she does not think there is anything wrong with her and she can take care of herself, the household and her husband. Both of them have vision issues. She has cataracts and refuses to have it corrected because again she sees just fine. She could potentially have another vision problem but she refused the test. She was a self medicator up until 3 weeks ago. She threw a fit about her pill bottles being taken away from her which was the second time. There have been several family meetings - some with siblings without parents, some with just the father and some that the father still thinks he can reason with his wife which ends up with her screaming and yelling at everyone. Her drivers license was taken away almost 2 years ago. That was a big fight also!! The family has shown several different facilities to the father but he refuses to make a decision. He wants to keep his wife in the home. Home care options have been discussed many times and attempted once with her screaming and yelling at the caregiver and was told to get the "H" out. She has told family members to get out many times - that they can take care of themselves. So, what do we do? How do we get a demented person out of their house when there is a questionably competent spouse there also??
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But she deserves to retire and relax a little bit at this point in her life.
At least that is how I would approach it. At 85 she should not have to be scrubbing her own toilet and mopping floors. She deserves a little retirement. There is a great new community program to provide retirement benefits to housewives over 80. Isn't that great?
I'd get an appointment with Social Services or Human Services or whatever her county calls it, for an needs assessment interview. A family member should be there for it. My mother kept saying, "No I don't need help with that. My daughters do it." At which point a daughter would pipe up, "No, mother, when we come over we want a chance to beat you at cribbage, not scrub your floors!" The assessment workers are used to clients denying that they need help but someone there needs to tell the truth.
If MIL turns out to be eligible for some help through this "special community retirement program" start small. Having someone do a little housework is usually easier to accept that having several services all at once.
It is pretty near impossible to force help on someone who has not been declared incompetent in a court. So you have to be creative and a little tricky to try to get the necessary help in place.
The alternative is to wait for a crisis. When one of them is in a hospital there is more opportunity to intervene.
Oh, I see, you're a daughter-in-law. If your son and his brother with the POA aren't ready to take definitive action, then just leave it alone. Sooner rather than later, they will both be overwhelmed.