My father (75) has limited mobility and some kind of dementia diagnosis. Many of his symptoms have to do with sleep and lack thereof. At certain times, he sleeps a couple hours or less a day, and after a few days of this begins to hallucinate. My mother (70) is his main caregiver, and my question right now is about her.
If she is not there, my dad feels overwhelmed and scared, even if other family members are there with him. (I have 2 siblings who live very close; I am 3 hours away). Sometimes she will drive him around for hours at a time because sometimes it helps him sleep. She feels overwhelmed and frustrated because there are options he doesn't want to try (new meds, mostly). When we ask Mom how we can help her, she says we can't because he only wants her. I know that it is best to offer help in concrete ways, but I don't know what that might look like. She doesn't want "strangers" in her house-- so someone coming in as respite or housecleaning wouldn't be welcome. And I feel limited being so far away-- I can't stop in to do laundry or mow the lawn. Any advice on how I can be helpful?
I don’t recommend doing what I did. I didn’t see a better alternativ. You can get a lot done in a short amount of time once you get your routine down. I suspect your mother doesn’t know how tired she is. I know I didn’t.
DL
Second suggestion is to see if your Mom is open to you helping with some online shopping. Can you reduce her time out of the house and effort carrying stuff into the house by ordering staples that are delivered to the house? Walmart offers free pickup for $30 orders, free delivery for $50 orders and Amazon is free with a prime membership. Toilet paper, cleaners, paper towels, coffee, tea, soup, lotions/cremes, flour, sugar, canned food, etc. can be shipped to the house. There are also some shopping services where someone would shop your mother's list in her favorite grocery.
Third suggestion is to keep talking about respite and housekeeping care. My experience is the first person you manage to get into the house is the hardest. I understand that your father does much better in your mother's care, but if she is going to continue to care for him she MUST take care of herself too. She needs respite so she can attend to her own appointments (doctor, medical testing, errands, shopping) and have an occasionally break. If there's a senior center or senior day care your father could attend even one morning a week it would be a big help to your mother.
Please remember when talking about this stuff to be supportive, respecting your parents are still the final decision makers in their home. I found stating that something would help me feel better about their safety or comfort encouraged my parents to try things they didn't feel they "needed". (I read where seniors often sleep heavily and don't wake for fire alarms so I would feel so much better about your safety if you had a fire alarm on a monitored security system.) My parents were very against changing light fixtures in their home so I gave them a ceiling fan as an anniversary present and promised to take it down after 30 days if they didn't like it. Once they experienced the ceiling fan in their den, they loved it and didn't oppose replacing the kitchen light with a ceiling fan a couple of months later.
What you describe is very typical of problems with stubborn elders who are no longer reasoning well. With my folks it was 5 years of no mans land where they were legally competent, I couldn’t force help or moving, but for all practical purposes it was a train wreck.
You post raises lots of questions: Does anyone have POA? Who’s controlling the finances? When I saw it coming with my folks I started laying track, chasing down the money, getting POA, looking at assisted living places etc.
I could only do as much as my folks would allow. I had to wait for the inevitable crisis, mom falling, hospital then to assisted living.
Id suggest you make the trip and have a meeting with you sibs and get your ducks in a row. I did it all long distance. Made countless trips. I was lucky to be just retired when the problems hit.