My mom is almost 95, lives alone, can’t see or hear much, and is mean. Who can I call to help?

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Pameladeville Asked August 2020

My mom is almost 95, lives alone, can’t see or hear much, and is mean. Who can I call to help?

My mom still lives alone (her choice) and my brother is her primary caregiver. He takes her groceries and takes her to doctor’s appointments, pays her bills for her, fixes anything needed around her house. She is almost blind and deaf at this point, yet she still goes out and walks her neighborhood daily. She has twice agreed to go into AL and then backed out. She doesn’t want any strangers in her house, either, so in home care is off the table. She has a cleaning person so her house is very clean. She doesn’t have toilet issues and can feed herself just fine. I don’t think an agency like Adult Protective Services would see anything wrong here. So what sort of agency can I call to help me get the ball rolling on doing SOMETHING with her? My brother is at wits end. She isn’t nice (she never has been) and keeps accusing him of stealing stuff. She’s the same with me, but I live far, far away, and only communicate with her via email now. I feel horrible for my brother. Is there anyone I can call to step in and help with this situation?

Burnout Living Independently Refusing Care Senior Housing

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score 1 · Answer 1

Sounds like she’s beginning dementia. Do something before she falls or walks out & gets lost. Brother is getting burnt out. Act now while a facility will still accept her. Otherwise she will have to go to ER for 3 days. Get a nursing assessment & take that form to nursing home admissions office. Good luck & hugs 🤗

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score 3 · Answer 2

Your mother is not living independently, as is evidenced by you and your brother orbiting around her. If he stopped helping her for 1 week, she would immediately understand this, IF she does not have cognitive decline, which by your description, she does. The caregiving arrangement needs to work for both parties or it's not working. And it's not in your brother's case so he needs to resign. Hopefully someone has PoA and will now make the decision for her to go into AL and stop being afraid of her "meanness". There are ways to get her there if she resists. If no PoA then you can both step away, call APS and allow the county to gain guardianship over her. This is all that you can do. I wish you success in helping her to transition!

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score 2 · Answer 3

The ball is firmly in your brother’s court on this. Your mother is by any measure doing amazingly well for her age. The accusing behavior, unless it’s always been there, is likely some dementia, which would be very expected at her age. But she’s mostly safe, feeds and toilets herself, no authority is going to force her to change or do anything. So it becomes up to your brother to decide what he will and won’t do, he’s an adult and free to decide, mom can’t make him do anything. If he doesn’t want to do the groceries, he can arrange delivery, if he doesn’t want to do home repairs, he can hire it done. Mom can take Uber to her appointments. Like many of us have done, he’s created the illusion of independence for her by propping her up with help. If he decides he can’t or won’t do it anymore, it’s fine to use her money to hire it done. But the power is with him. She can yell and freak out, but he remains the adult with choices of his own to make

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My mother has ALWAYS been accusatory. She is not a pleasant person. My brother is taking the brunt of it because I am far away, unfortunately. No doctor has diagnosed her with dimentia, astonishingly. She had complications after a pacemaker installment about five years ago, and spent a week in the hospital and a couple of weeks in rehab. I had her all set up to go home with an in home caregiver, but she said NO WAY and the rehab and social worker gave her the okay to go home alone.

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score 2 · Answer 4

I hope brother has POAs, financial and medical. If Moms Dementia has progressed to where she can't make informed decisions then the POAs are in effect. As such, the POA now makes decisions for her. At that point, she can be placed in an AL. As POA I had the authority to sell Moms house to cover her care. If there is no POA, u will need guardianship which is expensive. Medicaid allows for using Moms money for this.

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My brother has POA, thankfully. She has not been diagnosed with dementia. So she can’t fight us on this if he has POA? We can just put her in the car and relocate her? To one of three wonderful facilities in our hometown, BTW.

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My mom is almost 95, lives alone, can’t see or hear much, and is mean. Who can I call to help?

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