My 102 year old mother is living at home. I am her POA and proxy. The last two years have been a nightmare. She has fallen several times with serious injuries from three falls. She came home from a several month rehab knowing she needed help at home. She kicked them out on the third day. All of the services, VNA, Caretakers, have said she shouldn’t be at home alone. I talk until I am blue in the face. She won’t listen telling me she has to die at home where her husband died. It was recommended I get her a medical alert pendant. In the last month she has set it off 21 times. She fools with it while wearing it or let’s it hang from her walker. It thinks she is falling. I get calls from them day and night. Sometimes she answers the phone and others she ignores it. Last week we had agreed she should go to assisted living. A nurse came to visit and assess her. I went and made all the arrangements and then yesterday she tells me she won’t go. If I make her she says she will make a scene and get kicked out. She acted out at the rehab too. They couldn’t wait to be rid of her. What good does it do to be a POA or proxy ? I can’t physically force her to leave the house. I have called adult services and they were no help at all. I don’t know what to do. I wanted to resign as POA and proxy,but mom’s attorney asked me to continue. I can’t keep living like this.
Stop showing up at the ER might be a plan
Perhaps you will need to do what we did. Keep posting it will help!
Good luck.
My MIL lived in FL 20 years before her death. FIL died 17 years before her. When DH retired, the phone calls usually were "u need to move down here". Then she came up one time saying she was thinking of moving back. We went thru looking at apts and trailers with her but she never moved back. When she said something to me about moving down, I told her it would never happen because I had my Mom. My husband never gave in to her. He told me she chose to move to Fla. She wanted to stay in that house. That was her decision and if she died in that house, that too was her decision.
So, seems Mom has done OK for 102. And if this is where she wants to stay then let her. And if she dies because she stayed in her house, then she did it her way. POA does not mean you have to do for her. Doesn't mean ur at her beck and call. Might want to tell her what u will and won't do. Otherwise, she pays to have it done.
If so, your durable poa and healthcarenpoa may well give you the right to place her in a secure memory care unit.
Has she been seen by a geriatric psychiatrist? Although meds cant reverse dementia, they can often reduce the paranoia, agitation and anxiety that often accompany it.
If the lawyer has any standing with mom (i.e., she trusts him) pay him the hourly rate for mom to visit him. Let HIM explain that shes acting irrationally. It's worth a shot.
Resign
Resign
Then let the chips fall where they may. Your mom, if she is of sound mind (and no court has declared her incompetent) cannot be forced into anything she does not wish to do. But that doesn't mean you by default are the cleaner upper.
Step back - let her figure it out. Then a medical emergency will force the issue - as it has for so many families on this site with stubborn elders.
Tell the attorney that they are welcome to the position.
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