Need help with elderly parent

In My Humble Opinion
1

My mom turned 82 this week. Physically, she’s getting weaker, she had stents placed 18 months ago, has somewhat high blood pressure, and tires easily. Fairly typical for an elderly woman.

It’s not her physical wellbeing that is really concerning me, though. It’s her mental wellbeing that is very worrying.

She’s been exhibiting signs of paranoia for a few years now. She is adamant her cousin and the cousin’s family are out to “get” her. She has attributed missing things around the house to them managing to bypass her security system and stealing. In speaking with her last night, she stated she “heard” them discussing how they are going to kill her and they have the ability to do it without a trace as two of her cousin’s children were police officers. I guess there’s even a note on her kitchen table directed towards them.

Her cousin has been in her house one, 30 years ago. The cousin is in her late 80’s/early 90’s. Yes, two of her kids were police officers, both kicked off the job due to financial malfeasance. They’re also now in their mid-60’s.

Mom firmly believes her cousin stole property owned by an Uncle in Montana. I did a lot of legwork to prove that Uncle sold the land in the early 60’s, but because the person he sold it to had a last name (fairly common) same as someone in her cousin’s family, they stole it from her.

When another uncle died a few years ago, cousin received a fair share of the inheritance. Mom is positive they stole it.

I try to tell her that she’s letting them take up space in her brain. The cousin and her family are lazy, according to family stories. All these plots against her would require effort I seriously doubt they have. And… why? What would they have to gain? Her response is they want to destroy her.

Last night she yelled at me, angry that I don’t believe her. I replied that I don’t know what to believe, because I don’t know these people. I met her cousin maybe twice in my life.

The cousin’s family is the BIG paranoid delusion, but there are so many others. A neighbor tried mowing her lawn, she kicked them off her property, then ranted to me, wanting to know what they wanted from her. Uh, to be kind to an elderly woman? Every phone number she doesn’t recognize is someone out to steal information. She runs an aid charity at her church, but when she goes to assist a person, she panics at the other person’s every move. Literally. One man went to shake her hand, and she yelled at him not to touch her.

What do I do?

2

I’m sorry you’re going thru this.

The only thing that worked even slightly with elderly relatives like your mom is to change the subject when they bring it up. I had no success in trying to talk them down.

IME this is a problem that is managed rather than fixed. I assume she is on medications - are any of the meds psychoactive, like tranquilizers or such? There is, unfortunately, a fine line between meds that will calm her down, and meds that will still allow her to live in her own house.

Again, my sympathies.

Regards,
Shodan

3

Good luck. Try everything, but temper your expectations.

Do you accompany you mother to her doctor’s visits? It would be a good idea to mention this to her PCP. You could even do this in an unsolicited letter to the doctor.

If your mother is unwilling to see a mental health professional (which I anticipate), you should seek some counseling for yourself. What you describe is not unusual, and you would benefit from the advice of experts experienced in this.

Fortunately, it does not sound as tho she is an immediate danger to herself, so she might just be alienating everyone she comes into contact with. Which - of course - is not good, but not immediately life/health threatening.

If you feel it is bad enough, you will want to consider whether you wish to take steps to have her declared incompetent, in which case you can make the needed decisions for her.

It is to your credit that you are concerned about your mother. But I implore you to also keep an eye on what effect this is having on YOUR well-being.

4

This, and this.

My mother’s own signs of paranoia come as no surprise: she’s always been a firm believer in “think ill and you’ll be right”, and her mother was much more so. But sometimes they put her at risk: she recently got her phone provider changed against her will (my brother was eventually able to sort it out), and then she decided that any number she didn’t recognize was scammers, so when she got calls from the healthcare center (to inform her of an appointment and verify if the date was ok for her) or from the Alert Button people (she’d accidentally triggered it), she didn’t respond. Talking to her about these things when either party is upset creates a spiral that goes nowhere but to pain; talking to her when she’s in a good mood and my patience reservoir is full does work (not always on the first try).

5

Ugh. The phone. Daily, I have the joy of looking up numbers that have called her. Unless it’s someone programmed into her phone (so the name pops up), she will not answer the phone.

About a month ago, she received a call looking for someone with a similar first name, correct last name. Guy stated he was a land manager in North Dakota, looking for this person. Mom, of course, freaked. And, she, of course, somehow thought her cousin was involved. I pulled out the nifty paternal family tree and could not find anyone with this woman’s first name. Now, we have a very unique last name. There are two separate families in Minnesota with this last name - ours and another family who may have been related 600 years ago in Germany, but we don’t know.

Basically, this woman with a similar first name and same last name owns property that he wants to buy. I explained to him we don’t know who this person is, he apologized for the error, boom, done.

Or not. Mom has brought up more than a few times that she thinks her cousin is behind this. Trying to somehow scam mom into believing she owns property that she knows she does not, just to make her doubt herself. Mom has gone through her records to she if she or dad ever owned property in North Dakota. She has called dad’s family to see if they know of this person. She will not let it go.

6

https://www.ncoa.org/
National Council on aging.

Your state will also have one. Google it. Another thing look into Medicare spend down. That have a look back, I believe it’s 3 years. This will effect her if she needs longtime care in a facility.

Get a medical and durable power of attorney.

7

Info on spend down. The best source will be the Medicare/ Medicaid site.

8

Thank you for posting the spend down info. We’re going through this with an elderly relative right now.

OP - you should definitely have her evaluated by her doctor or a physician who specializes in senior care in your area. It sounds like she’s in mental decline, and you need to get an assessment as to whether that’s the case.

I strongly second the recommendation to get the medical and durable power of attorney. Do it now, while she can still consent.

I also agree that deflection is the best course, whenever she is bringing up paranoid ideas. “The neighbors stole my flowers!” and you respond with “I’ll look into that and how about them Blue Jays (or whatever).” Arguing with her is pointless, and doing the info searches is pointless. Just move onto another topic, or turn on a movie, or play some music; anything to divert her attention.

9

Another thing, when the elderly are dehydrated or have a urinary tract infection (UTI), they will become delusional and paranoid. Keep them hydrated.

10

My FIL got freaky and paranoid. He was talking to people not there and was sure these people wanted his (non-existent) money. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. It explained some of his mental problems. Sadly he died a scared snd bitter man.

11

Your mom sounds like my mom when she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. I lived 400 miles away from her and didn’t see her decline from day to day, so I was surprised when she called me out of the blue one day and said that my brother was stealing her money and that she wanted legal help. This wasn’t happening - my brother was taking care of her and paying for an eldercare babysitter.

She also thought that when my dad died in 1980, he had left a bunch of money and that she didn’t get any of it. He didn’t. He was a retired sheriff’s deputy and all their money was held in a joint account. She thought that a huge inheritance went to other people and should have come to her.

12

In Texas, our lawyer told us it’s five years we had to wait. For my 88 year old dad with severe dementia, and sundowner’s, it meant taking the bank accounts, and other assets out of his name and into my mom’s, then us kids when she passed which has been almost six years ago. One mistake we made is having the house still in his and my mom’s name. When mom passed , it was going to be another five years wait due to it still being in his name too.

Our lawyer said we got penalized for every month that we didn’t go buy a new house after selling theirs. The penalty involves having to buy an even more expensive home. If we buy a house for dad, we have to pay about double what we sold old home for. He has to live there for minimum 3 days and 3 nights with us obviously keeping an eye on him, otherwise he’ll destroy it, only then can we legally sell it, and qualify for Medicaid paying for him getting into a resthome and using his existing monthly check. Had we put him in a home 27 years ago when he first had his stroke, it would have been about 3 million out of our own pockets for the type of care memory people he needed. He’s a full time job around the clock, especially at night with the sundowner’s and severe dementia which followed a few years after his stroke. He has about a 5 second short-term memory for the most part. Not easy to take care of for most working folk, when you’re still trying to make a living too.

Having an estate planner is important, but it comes with a price. Just for him to do this one thing for us, if we decide to do it, required a $6,500 payment up front to the lawyer to make that happen, plus $400 an hour with additional expenses. Several hundred thousand to buy a house we won’t need but 3 days and nights, another 6% of that going to realtors when we buy it, and another 6% after we sell, along with other usual house buying and selling expenses. So if your case ever comes down to that, please try not to make the same mistake we did.

13

I found an elder care social worker, and discussed the situation with her. Unfortunately, some of her solutions would be very difficult for me to do. She suggested dropping an anonymous call to adult protective services. As if mom would ever open her door to someone she doesn’t know, nor would she agree to meet an APS worker. There’s also the fear that she would blame the cousin again and go off the rails even further.

I did contact her primary physician’s office. The care coordinator suggested I join mom at one of her visits. That would never be permitted. I didn’t know she had a heart attack until the following day, when she realized she had to contact someone to pick up her mail. The family joke is that she literally could be on fire and she would say it’s a tad warm. Since that’s out, she suggested I send a letter to her doctor outlining the issues, requesting the doctor screen her for mental health issues.

So that’s what I’ve done. The draft is with my daughter and my sister for review.

As far as her overall memory, it’s pretty darned great. She has taken to keeping notebooks, journaling her day. Post it notes are her best friend. We recently took a drive somewhere she hadn’t been in years, and she pointed out stuff like “if you turn here, so-and-so’s house is down a block”.

The sad irony- my mom’s father had dementia. Mom said on more than one occasion that she would never put her children through what she went through with him.

14

Yeah…accusing people of stealing things is often one of the first signs that a person has Alzheimer’s. It definitely was with my great grandmother. Apparently people believe things they misplaced were stolen to make sense of the things going missing.

15

Did she say how she was going to see to that? My dad never wanted to put us kids through this, nor did my mom after she passed, but 6 years later, we are still having to do this, and now he’s tearing our homes all to hell. While one brother has to still work a full-time job, my other brother and I alternate every other month, to fix repairs, and to get our own work done still trying to make a living.

16

Agree with what others have said. This sounds like the beginning of demntia/Alzheimer’s. Talk to her doctor, and try taking her for an appointment. You may be able to get her to go see her own doc, rather than unfamiliar elder care.

Take care of yourself. Go to the library and get a book in dealing with a relative with dementia. Perhaps a support group for you. Recognise that the parent you grew up with, love, and respected is likely gradually slipping away. You’re going to become the parent to your parent.

Big internet hugs!

17

Memories from decades past generally stay intact for some time after full-blown (but early-stage) dementia sets in. In my opinion – going from personal experience with my grandmother – this part actually makes it more likely, not less, that she does in fact have dementia.

18

Can you drive her? Both with my mother and with her mother, inserting ourselves into doctor’s visits (or even, for Grandma, being able to bring them to one) was a matter of being meeega heeeelpful and totally non bossy. Why no, I’m not coming to the doctor with you because that way I can correct your “misrememberings”, I’m just driving you because that’s so much more comfortable than taking the bus. Totally. If your mother is the kind of person who steals other people’s merit, she’s also easily manipulated into thinking that hints you’ve dropped are actually her idea; this is behavior that sometimes shows up in sick people who wouldn’t have done such a thing while they were compos mentis.