I posted a few weeks ago about my moms grunting, and suspicion of vascular dementia. I am the 24 year old daughter of my mom, 61. We are waiting for an appointment with her neurologist, but I still wholly suspect VD. She is horrible with days of the week, and her dentist informs me that she is regularly late for appointments (when she tells me her appointment time, I believe her, turns out, we are always late or come on wrong day). Guess I will be needing to confirm with the Dr.'s from now on....
More concerning, though, in the four weeks that I have been staying with her, she has either fallen asleep or completely forgotten about food being cooked in the oven. I came home today from getting gasoline for my car, to the smoke alarms going off. She says, oh, don't mind that, I was cooking a grilled cheese and it let off some smoke. I look in the oven because I smell sugar burning (and I can see it is on), and what do you know, there are 12 marshmallows burnt to a crisp. Instead of being frightened or concerned, she says, Man, those were my last marshmallows, I completely forgot about them! The previous two times she has started to cook a baked potato in the evening, gone to lie down, completely forgotten and fallen asleep. She uses the oven late at night sometimes because she has very irregular sleep patterns. It concerns me.
Also, just the other day, I walked into the kitchen to get a drink and saw the large burner was on, no pot or pan or anything. Just the burner burning away. She was on the porch. I said mom, did you know the burner was on? She says is it really? ......
My mother in law also informed me that while DH and I were away on honeymoon, she took my mom to eat and when they returned the whole house smelled like gasoline, because my mom had left a burner on ignition mode. The fire department had to come.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. It stresses me out on a daily basis and I am up all hours of the night, as she is, checking on her when I here she is in the kitchen.
She isn't showing resistance to assisted living. But, she lives on disability SSI, medicare/medicaid and has no income.
Her mother is a wealthy woman and lives in assisted living currently, but they are always so hesitant to help with finances and it's always a source of tension.
How do people with no income pay for assisted living? I recently bought a house with my husband, small house, small mortgage, and will not have extra income to spare. I am only 24 and just starting out on my own financial responsibility. Living together is not an option as it affects both of us, including my newly-wed marriage, detrimentally. I have never been so down, anxious, and agitated as I have these past four weeks with her. I love her to death, but we are not a match, and not to mention, I work full time and am in grad school. I don't have very much time left for myself.
She needs more supervision than I can provide or afford. Help :(
The program in my state is called Group Adult Foster Care (GAFC) and it pays for services for elders in subsidized senior housing and in assisted living centers such as daily personal care, homemaking, meals, and transportation.
The assisted living center may combine the GAFC services with the room and board which is paid by the resident, and another program called SSI-G. But you do not have to be eligible to receive SSI-G in order to qualify for GAFC.
You may be able to find a housing facility that participates in Senior Care Options (SCO), a Medicaid/Medicare funded program that provides services, benefits and treatments authorized by the primary care physician.
PACE, a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, is another program for patients who are eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. The purpose of the program is to help prevent nursing home admissions. If a nursing home admission becomes necessary, the PACE plan pays for the long-term care in the facility. Until that time, PACE can cover costs of assisted living that the resident's income doesn't cover. All services are provided or authorized by the PACE Interdisciplinary Team, except emergency services.
An elder law attorney in your state can guide you to the options and combinations of resources that are available in your area.
If she can be persuaded to use it, a mechanical timer she could set and take with her if she sits down in another room might help her remember she has something in the oven.