My girlfriend’s Dad is 82 and has Parkinson’s. His wife is his primary caregiver, she is 85 years old. My girlfriend is 47 and lives there with her 6 year old boy.
Her father’s condition has deteriorated to the point where he is very difficult to take care of. He has lost bladder control. He is on new medication that is altering is personality and making him more aggressive. It is straining the nerves of his wife.
He does not want to go into a retirement home but it has become unbearable to have him at home.
Last night the police and ambulance were called as he once more became aggressive. Neither would take him unless he willingly admitted himself. He eventually did but he could be home at any time which is putting the whole family on edge.
It is a difficult situation. They love him but know that they can’t take care of him any longer. As long as he is deemed to have a rational mind, he decides his own future.
Are there any options in this situation?
BTW - We live in Ontario.
Consult a local lawyer about your province’s procedures for obtaining a conservatorship.
Does he have a doctor who could be asked to discuss options with him, including a retirement home?
He has never agreed to an alternative living arrangement. He wants to live at home. His doctor and his family have both discussed this with him.
Ugh. My pops was exactly the same way. Finally he fell down and damn near died a couple of times and we managed to get him to concede to living in a retirement home. Once he was there, he was fine with it, but he was driving my sisters insane for several years before we got him to move. I’m sorry I can’t give you better advice, but I empathize with your situation. I wish you the best of luck.
Is there enough money that a full time caregiver can be hired? Maybe your girlfriend and her son need to leave to save their own sanity. This might be a way for everyone to get what they want.
This is better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
He wants to stay in his comfort zone. One of my friends just put his mother in a home. She was thriving with the activities and all the new people she could talk to. She absolutely hated going and bitched up a storm before she relaxed and got involved.Sometimes they are making decisions without knowing what the alternative is like. They sense that once put there they will be ignored by the staff and will not get visitors.
I’ve seen way too many people wait MUCH too long to move a parent. My aunt’s mother-in-law had declined to the point where they had to turn the gas off in her house, but she refused to leave it, so my aunt and her husband were over there three, four, five times a day taking care of her. She wouldn’t even move in with them. My uncle didn’t have the damned balls to tell her she didn’t have a choice anymore (seriously, living alone! In one of those steep-ass Pittsburgh houses! They had to turn off the gas so she didn’t burn the house down!) and put her in a facility whether she wanted it or not, and of course now everybody agrees it was the right thing to do. But this went on for years and years.
That’s about as sad a story as I’ve ever heard.
A friend of mine refused to let her dad be placed elsewhere (he really needed skilled nursing, but she fought it and finally he was put in assisted living, where he didn’t get nearly enough care because they simply were not set up for it) for quite a few years until her brother intervened and forced things to change.
In the meantime, her elderly mom had the full burden of trying to look after the man, whose ill health became increasingly worse; and she could barely look after herself. My friend insisted that she would take care of them but she also had to work and would never pony up any money (which she has loads of) for an assistant at home.
Then she ended up going to the assisted living place every day, fighting with the old man, calling him names, yelling, and even dumped a bowl of Ensure on him once when she was angry. She regrets that now that he’s gone, of course. She was trying to compensate for the lack of nurses in the place, but it just wasn’t working. She would never let go and let others step in to take care of things.
After he died, her mom could barely manage on her own, but she too was left alone all day at home. She broke her hip one day and was finally discovered later on when she wasn’t answering the phone. After going to the hospital and rehab, she was put into assisted living by her daughter, who was still resisting skilled nursing even after all the trauma with her dad. And she did the same over-compensating thing with her mom, though without as much anger and yelling. Pneumonia caused her mom to be sent to rehab eventually, where she received far more care than she had at assisted living.
Points I meant to make with the long-windedness above:
- Skilled nursing may be necessary if an assisted living facility cannot provide the level of care a person needs. Alternatively, the family could hire home health aides to go to the a.l.c. to help out.
- Insisting on taking care of a person at home sounds noble but isn’t always wise or feasible. It isn’t just bringing meals and fetching the mail. It’s lifting and turning, cleaning up, and many other unpleasant personal tasks that are exhausting and stressful. If you have a job and/or spouse and/or kids–or even if you don’t–you will soon find yourself unable to balance everything without help. If you become tired or sick, you won’t be able to be a good caregiver.
My friend had declared that she would never put her parents in a facility because she just “couldn’t do that to them.” Actually, from what I saw, it would have been a better option than keeping them at home, where they simply did not get the care that they needed.
My own dad had to go to a hospital and rehab because his ALZ was causing a physical breakdown as well as a mental one. He became unmanageable at home; my elderly mom and I could not keep up with him. He wanted to be up all night, which meant we got no sleep until we hired a night nurse, and that’s expensive at $20 per hour. Rehab took better care of him than we were able to.
My aunt P. wants to keep her husband, who had Alzheimer’s, at home. But now that she’s had intestinal surgery and cancer, she’s finding out that it doesn’t work to try to take care of herself and him at the same time. So far he hasn’t found the car keys that she has hidden away. I hope he never does; he is too far gone to be trusted with a car.
Sorry to ramble on so long.
To piggyback a bit: try checking the bulletin boards at the local senior center. There are usually folks with nursing degrees who post ads saying they would be happy to give in-home care, and they can negotiate prices with the family.
My grandpa went through the same thing with Parkinson’s. He stayed at home with my grandma as long as he could get to the bathroom (and use it) by himself.
After that, he had to go to a retirement home. There was no way that my grandma had the physical strength to nurse him and a full time nurse was not a financially feasible option.
He was also quite aggressive at the end. It was very sad to watch.
When he went in the home, my grandma visited him every day and he (and she) were doing much better. It is probably the best option for everyone involved.
Anyway, I think what you are trying to ask is how does one convince someone that it is time for them to move into a nursing home. The reality is that sometimes, even when it is best, you cannot. Sometimes, you have to get lawyers involved.
What did the hospital recommend? What are his doctor’s recommending? If they aren’t making recommendations, you can get his doctor to refer him to a geriatric specialist who will certainly make recommendations. Also from Ontario and have had this done for my grandparents.
I also wanted to pass along my sympathies to your girlfriend. There is nothing worse than watching what Parkinson’s does to a loved one. They are trapped inside a body that won’t do what they want and their personalities change so dramatically.
I am a (fairly new) Personal Support Worker in Ontario, and have gone through similar dilemmas with my parents in the past decade or so. My dad had alzheimers and stayed at home probably too long. My mum was diagnosed with cancer shortly after he passed away. I am sure that she spent so much energy taking care of him that she did not see the signs of her own impending illness.
First off, contact your local Community Care Access Center (CCAC). They are the clearing house for ensuring that everyone in Ontario is getting adequate care. They know what resources you are eligible for and will set you up appropriately. They can also help with the problem of him not wanting to leave his home.
Even though your GF’s dad won’t leave his home now, they will be eligible for home care to give her mum a bit of a break. Also, they will be able to set him up for a respite visit to a long term care residence to give her mum a more extended break. Typically, the visits are from 1-2 weeks long, to give the caregiver a chance to take care of themselves. Unfortunately, caregiver burnout is all too common. If he can be made to realize that he may literally be killing his wife, he may be more willing to allow others to care for him, even if for only a short time. The time spent in a facility will show him that it is not the end of the world. It is a way for him to be cared for in a safe environment. If he is mentally still sharp, he can still be active, even in a residence.
My friend’s mum just went through some convelesence time at a retirement home after a bad fall. My friend and him mum are both comfortable that a retirement home will be a good option when the time comes. Luckily, she has successfully returned back home to full independence. But at 86, it is a comfort to know that a retirement home will be comfortable when the time comes.
Feel free to contact me offline if you like.
Thanks for all your wonderful responses. I am passing these on to my girlfriend to read.
Do what Registered at Last has recommended. If despite this the situation continues to be unbearable but he has all his marbles, then as a last resort, have him booted from his home with an Ontario Family Law Act order for interim possession in right of his wife, or an FLA restraining order. Obviously this is not a happy way to deal with it, so keep your fingers crossed that the CCAC can steer the family to appropriate resources.
Hmm just came on to add to what Registered and Muffin have already said. He may be a candidate for a mental health bed too. Contact me for more details, I work in the geriatric mental health field.