I have two older sisters. The middle one is closest to my mother (85, but with it), and has been helping her through hip surgery, PT, and recovery. My mother is and has always been hyper-independent, and is not taking kindly to medical advice. She's barely doing her PT and has been threatened with winding back up in the hospital, but that doesn't sink in. She's also talking about having the other hip done, which just about sent my sister through the roof to hear.
We need our mom to move closer to that sister, who has given every single night of the last two weeks to staying with our mom who gets up in the middle of the night and needs help. She's exhausted with that and the 45 minute drive.
Our approach needs coaching, and I have no idea where to turn. All advice is very welcome!
You cannot change people. You can only manage YOUR OWN responses.
If sister doesn't wish to do this "Rehab work", or feels she cannot continue to do it, then she must speak to your mother about it, and about why she will not continue it, nor do it again. That is up to her to tell your mother. And your mother will respond however she responds. As long as mother has no dementia, her decisions are her own. As yours's and sister's are your own.
Without Sister mom will be down to hired help or to temporary in-facility rehab.
Ball will be in mom's court once sister tells her she will not play the game.
Nothing gets a senior a one-way ticket to a nursing home faster than being stubborn.
This should get your mother on board with moving and accepting help. She can either accept help and maintain some level of independence, or she can continue in the asinine stubbornness and end up in a nursing home where she will have no independence. Her choice.
Well, everything, if you wait long enough. My cousin, who was 85 at the time, had various joint surgeries. She faithfully did all her PT despite the pain. Her doctor told her that most patients her age do not, and that's why most did not fully recover as cousin did.
No point in telling your mom this. She doesn't get it. She never will. So you let the chips fall where they may, and that's that. I'm sorry.
th my mother in law, she kept getting declared “competent” and because of that, she was legally allowed to refuse help, refuse meds, fall 6 times in 12 hours and be allowed to refuse and kick out emt’s that were called to her house for assistance. She was also in the process of electing to have SPINAL surgery at 77 years old with a diagnosis of WORSENING MS. She was mean, and flat out rude. But because she could pass the MMSE, we had NO choice but to “allow” her to act this way. Stepping out and leaving her to her own devices was NOT an option- if she were to hurt herself, die, neglect herself and we just “stopped enabling” there was a very real chance of legal percussions against us in the form of neglect. You cannot just simply “ignore” them knowing they need help- it’s flat out neglect. Which is hard to even do when you’re a caring person anyway. So sometimes people get backed into a corner with no better option. Not all people that are stuck in the insanity of enabling are sick people too. Sometimes there is no alternative until you can find one. Which if you’ve never been through this before, you have NO idea where to turn. Thank GOD we were able to hire an elder law attorney that helped us file for emergency guardianship. It is through that process my mother in law was court evaluated and declared incapacitated and guardianship was awarded to us. It was only then when we could stop “enabling”
Caregiving has to be on the caregivers terms . Your sister should only do as much as she wants to do until she is not able to or no longer wants to .
Hired help for overnights should be implemented or Mom goes to rehab . If Mom refuses either , then Mom stays alone until she gives in .
Mom can not force your sister to keep doing this.
If Mom is that unreasonable , she may have dementia .
I tried & tried & some things were OK but for the most part my 80 year old mom fought everything, we had high strung arguments, she's combative negative & argumentative & she has said, old people want to be able to still make their own decisions even if they're spinning in a circle.
So, I handle for her what I can, but when she starts the arguing, I'm out.
Trying to help her in every way put me on pills & into therapy. I only went once & I can't take the pills as they make me groggy but, I learned to let it go & let her do it however & go on about my business & THAT is the only thing that works for me!
And when she goes into full dementia or whatever happens where she's not able to do things anymore THEN, I'll take over! But, until then, I try to decrease my stress level!
I wish you well!*
3.5 YEARS of our lives to taking care of our disabled, stroke impaired parents in their home. It has been incredibly disrupting to our personal lives, exhausting, and difficult. I have been in counseling for the last four months and have learned that I do have a choice in the situation. I could walk away and so could my sibling, leaving two completely helpless people to figure out what to do next. We have chosen to continue on with it to the end.
*Our choice is not right for everyone.*
You and your sister are in the very beginning stage of your mom’s situation and you are already miserable. Don’t expect your mom to change, as she will not, and there is no way you can make her change or bring her to a point of reason. She will continue to put herself and her preferences before yours. I’ve learned through counseling I cannot change my mom’s demands, poor decisions, or her selfish/narcissistic attitude. Since I have chosen to see this situation through, I must separate myself from her power to upset me. I work hard to take nothing personal and to keep my own identity. This is difficult. It does help if you and your sister can maintain a united front in dealing with mom. When the two of you are not in solidarity, your
mom will pick up on that in an instant and use it to her advantage to manipulate her wishes. No clear answers friend. I wish there were. I can tell you this experience has placed my husband and I in decision making mode for our future. At 70 years of age, we know we are not that far away from age related problems of our own. Therefore, we have planned and prepared now to prevent us from placing our own child in this type of situation as we age. Good luck and best wishes to you and your sister on this journey.
Your mother should pay for this help if she is able to; if not, the three of you sisters need to chip in for whatever in-home care your mother needs; one sister should not have to be on call.
If your mother is resistant enough to having hired help, maybe she will be more motivated to do the PT necessary to stay independent.
It sounds like all of you need to turn off fantasy land and deal with reality.
if I were you I’d talk to an elder law attorney- they can guide you through the process of POA or guardianship- they will know how to help you. At this point, you’re like we were- you need some outside help from someone that is highly qualified. Your sister nor any of you need to go through this. It’s hard! And I know how helpless it feels! Get some help for you ladies, please! I wish you the best of luck and I pray for strength, stability and patience for you all!!!
If there is no POA in place, if she were willing, the mother might be able to assign it now, but if there is an attorney involved who questions her competence to assign a POA, she probably won't be able to do it. If she has already been declared incompetent, she probably can no longer assign a POA, although occasionally an attorney will deem someone with dementia to be competent to assign a POA. However, the bigger problem in this situation is that if there is no POA in place, the mother may not be willing to assign one!
To be in charge of the mother's actions, it may be necessary to get guardianship, which is often a long and expensive process. If the mother has not been declared incompetent, then it might be very difficult to become her guardian. It's also more responsibility than many people want to have. In that case, the state in which she lives could become the guardian, which would remove all decision-making capability from her children. That may be what some children want, or it may be exactly what they don't want!
She needs the "push" that everybody in rehab offers to get moving, to get strong, to get back to her usual life. Let them threaten her with skilled nursing facility if she doesn't progress.
Please try this and get the monkey off of your backs.
Pushing them to do anything is difficult and getting them to leave their home is nearly impossible (understandable to some degree actually).
Things like telling them they are going to end up back in the hospital would seem to be motivational but in my experience, from family, its not well received. In the research I worked on, we had to convince very frail elderly people to exercise and go to the bathroom. Some were very motivated and some were not. We had to learn how to motivate these non motivated research patients and I learned not to ask questions or to push them in any way. There was one thing that seemed to work nicely which was using "Its time to ....." Quite often, they would comply without too much pushback. We would help them walk to the toilet and use the bathroom every two hours. The walk was up to 10 minutes and we did other exercises as well such as sits to stands and used elastic bands for "strength training". This helps to keep their remaining muscle mass and to help them to be continent.
Maybe this will help you and your siblings to work with your mom. Unfortunately, I don't have any way to help you get your mom to move. This may not be something that can be done unless she can be convinced that its going to be better than what she has currently.