How will we handle Mom's dementia-related anger when we sell her home to fund her assisted living apartment?
After 3 years of allowing Mom to live independently with some in-home care and LOTS of care from me (daughter) and her neighbors she has moved into a lovely assisted living facility. She has adjusted well but still thinks she will return to her house when she is "better." Her dementia has progressed markedly over the past 6 months. She still knows that her house is HER HOUSE and she missed it and her neighborhood (she lived there 13 years) though she is only 3 miles away.
It is necesary for us to sell her house to pay for the assisted living facility. In the same conversation she tells me the realtor she would like to handle the sale and five minutes later says she will "get better" and come home to live there "soon."
Any suggestions on how to handle her once the house is actually sold? Guilt-ridden daughter looking for any help at all.
23 Answers
Popular Questions
Related Questions
- Mom can't complete a sentence and has lost her nouns, but can remember family and some friends name. She argues and gets upset if I don't argue back. What is going on?
- Is there a program that pays for a family member to take care of an elderly parent?
- Symptoms of Dementia?
- My mom moans a lot in the morning, but when I ask her if she is hurting she says "no". Is this normal for elderly with Alzheimer's?
Well the other day we were driving in the car and I saw one of those MERCEDES Vans (shuttle bus) from the retirement center. I mentioned to mom, there go the seniors.... maybe today is Bingo day, or shopping day..... and she said to me, "I can live alone just fine, I can get around and take care of myself, but if I ever fall and say couldn't walk anymore, then I would consider help."
So like everyone says, in my case I have to wait for her to fall down and be basically immobilized before she will go without a fight.
It's hard when you have DPOA but they are NOT incompetent and you are in the gray area.
She is 91 and basically her body is healthy as a horse. She only takes 3 pills a day. I don't look forward to the day coming when I sell the house and she's crying to come home.... it seems to be the normal pattern here for most folks....
I wish I had some advice, but I don't. I'll be following this thread for some, though!
Right now I am doing as naheaton and others above have mentioned. Mom moved near us a few years ago and has been doing okay in a regular apt. She gets a little help from paid caregivers and a LOT from us. However, I see the need coming soon for a change. Mom is absolutely terrified of going to a "home." (of course, her impression are coming from the 50s when most homes were grim.)
I constantly feel guilty because I cannot do it all. I also think that she would benefit from being around others her own age...she used to be so social. But I can see her digging her heals in. I think her ideal situation would be for me to be there 24/7. I am at the end of my rope now...I cannot imagine if I had to do more than I am already doing. Everyone seems to need me now and I am doing my best to stave off depression.
Anyway, as I said above, having smaller conversations on a regular basis is better than waiting until the decision is made for them.
Good luck to all of us struggling with these issues....
Lilli
She was so angry she pinched my husband and called us and her other children sometimes 10 times a day and demanded to go home. She ranted and raved and cursed and threatened suicide. We did not give in. Was it pleasant? No, but we knew it was the only decision for her. She was 87 and her macular degeneration has left her nearly blind. We finally got her into a good geriatric specialist and her diagnosis was demntia. It was like living in Hades for about 3 months, but we knew that we had to exercise tough love. We still have to do many of the common things for her, take her shopping, do her laundry, but she is getting three nutritious meals a day and the most important, daily activities and ALL of her medications on time.
All of her children still work full time and lead active lives. Even when she would live with us, she complained of being alone and bored. Finally, after nearly 6 months, she is happy. Yes, it was tough but we did not give in and take her home. She still talks about moving back home-300+miles away, but we just change the subject. We tell her that because we love her and care about her, she cannot go back and live alone. She fianlly feels like the staff are nice and the people she lives with are nice. She thinks the place is a "dump", but she cannot really see.
Wow - me too! My uncle wants to move back to his apartment of 42 years which he adores. He is an 88 year old bachelor and somehow out of the blue, after a heart attack and two strokes, I have become his health care proxy and power of attorney. He has been through extensive testing and his doctors recommend that he stay in assisted living. His remaining brothers and sisters agree and believe that letting him go back to his apartment (500 miles from all of us) is a death sentence. His landlord sent me a letter that says he can’t come back without medical clearance because they don’t want the other families in the building to be at risk. I called his medical team and they assure me that based on the cognitive testing that has been done - he should not go back. The two social workers that care for him agree. Everybody agrees that I am doing the right thing, against his wishes, but on his behalf. None-the-less I can’t help feeling that I am betraying him. I am taking a week’s vacation and am going to clean out his apartment and move his belongings into storage. I think I will take the “sell don’t tell” route. He changes the subject whenever I try to talk about it so I guess I can start doing the same thing. Even after four months of seeing example after example that prove he is incapable of independent living, I fear he will have a miraculous recovery and I will have ruined his life. GUILTY I AM.
This week I took her to her beach house about 2 hours away thinking she would have happy memories and enjoy a change of location. IT WAS HORRIBLE. She was angry, hostile, even threw things around. She was verbally abusive to me and my husband about "putting her away." We only stayed 24 hours rather than the 4 days we planned to stay. She did not even eat for the 24 hours!! Yet...she tells friends that it was HER decision to move to the ALF and she "loves" it.
Selling her car and her not being able to drive is even more contentious. I try being truthful but she gets so angry and aggressive at me when I do that. I know that being independent for 28 years after my father passed away makes the loss of that independence more difficult to bear.
I have been counseled to not even visit her for a couple of weeks now. I hope I can do that. I am more callused to her verbal abuse now after about 3 years of it; but it still hurts not to be able to make her happy.
Still dealing with selling the house and dreading the day I have to tell her it has been sold.
Then her husband suddenly got sick, 6 months later he's dead and the beginnings of her dementia at that time were thrown into full tilt. Her memory suffered first (short term is gone) and because of the macular degeneration, she couldn't take care of herself anymore. We found out that he had been covering for her for years with the memory decline and eye sight. At that time my sister-in-law started looking around for asst living places. We did not tell her, but we had money on two places to hold them open for mil. She and I knew it was only a matter of time, but m-i-l was determined to stay independent. BUT we had to dispense her pills, take her everywhere, I washed her hair, sis-in-law washed her feet, it was on going. Plus I felt terrible that she'd sit there day in and day out by herself with nothing to do but watch TV, so I started a regime of visits/trips/movies etc. When she fell (again) and this time broke her hip, we seized the moment and she never went home after rehab. What saved us being the 'bad guys' was that all the doctors at the NH that evaluated her, said she could no long live alone. Anyway, making a long story longer Nan, she has been there for 6 months at least now, and has NEVER stopped saying she wants to go home. But after us repeating that she can't go home again, maybe 10,000 times or so, she does remember THAT, it just doesn't make a difference. She wants to go HOME!! period. nothing can be done about how she feels, but it doesn't change the fact that she can't go home.
In my case I am frustrated because I fell I have lost my home. Mom is in a great program where we pay a flat fee and she gets home help for 3 hours/day and can also go to day care and respite (all for the same price). If she ever needs it, they will pay for assisted living too. But since she has told her social worker that she wants to stay in "her" home as long as possible, that is their goal. As long as that is her wish, assisted living is not being investigated. Never mind that it is MY house and she has only lived there a little over a year.
Some days I don't mind, but on others I have a much harder time. I lived alone for years and now I can never get time alone (except if I send Mom to respite - have done this once and she hated it and cries at the thought of going back).
Sorry this got off topic. Basically, my Mom eventually forgot about losing her home and isn't even upset now if my brother and I talk about it. Do what you think is best. In the end, that is all we can do.
Of course that was nearly a month and a half ago. She finally had some pretty ugly interactions with grandma on the phone-5-6 phone calls to her place of employment, screaming, out of control anger, demanding she be taken home.
We, of course, are taxed with the day to day mangement of an angry, resentful dementia patient who cannot care for herself and even forgets what day it is and how long she has been with us. She is out of control-always. She has hit and pinched my husband, and cannot even hold a peacable conversation. We have tried to see her every other day, but all she will talk about is "getting out of this place", never anything else. Yes, we have taken her to the Dr. and she is on medication for depression and memory loss.
The other sibling write us emails-but do not visit. However, the daughter still is telling her mother that she will arrange to take her home...soon. So the anger never ends. We have decided to try not visiting so often. We are emotionally drained. We do not have guilt, because we cannot expect a granddaughter to care for her grandmother-and we will not allow my husband's siblings to expect this scenario either.
Peace love tranquility education clean air pure water and strong coffee.
Seems like the smart thing to do, but I can see how a lot of mixed emotions would go with the decision to sell.
My mom kept saying "when I get better" too but I think she realizes she just won't. She said she is going to bring her queen-size bed back in her room too.....yeah right.
I don't see anything wrong with selling the house because they don't need all that xtra worry that goes along with the upkeep. I have always said they need peace.