She could ask for a divorce, with loads of tears and “I can’t take this anymores?” Could be the whack upside the head he needs. Nellybly: Maybe you could scout out a home before it happens. The home probably has someone experienced in this, so ask them.
It may not help in the OP’s case, but a healthcare power of attorney that expressly includes mental health treatment is essential for everyone. Age doesn’t matter. Marital status doesn’t matter. They’re relatively easy to have done or to do yourself. A quick web search for your state and “health care power of attorney” or “health care proxy” or “advance directives” should result in a form on the state’s website or the state bar’s website.
Sounds like there’s a LOT more to that story.
A medical board I used to post on had a thread addressed to people who worked in nursing homes, and they asked if they’d ever seen a “dump and dash.” Only one said she had; a middle-aged man wheeled his elderly father into the lobby, with a suitcase in his lap, and then the son took off running. They got his license plate number, etc. and it turned out that the son couldn’t take care of his dad any more and just didn’t know what else to do. IIRC, the father was later properly admitted.
Lovely.
My father has increasingly severe dementia. He is, for all practical purposes, my dependent (although between savings, Social Security and his pension from a government job, he’s financially okay).
He raised me, clothed me, fed me, sent me to college, made it possible for me to graduate debt-free, and has given me immeasurably more than that.
He’s fairly happy. I wish him nothing but as long a life as possible, and I’ll do whatever I can to make that life comfortable for him.
Yes. I’ve got this for my father.
But (at least in my state) it doesn’t mean anything unless and until the elderly person is declared incompetent by the appropriate authority. You still have to go through that process.
What it is very useful for is protecting the elderly person from a child or other caregiver who may have less than pure motives.
In my case, there is one sibling, who hasn’t seen my father more than three or four times in the last twenty years, who would like nothing better than to blow into town, have my father declared incompetent, and him/herself declared guardian, disappear with him back to his/her home several thousand miles away, put him in a room somewhere, and liquidate all his assets and keep the proceeds.
The designation of guardian keeps him safe. If he is declared incompetent, I am the guardian. Done deal.
Yep.
My father is good until 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening. Then it’s like the curtain comes down. It’s really amazing how quick the transition is from coherent, lucid and normal to old man with severe dementia. It happens in minutes.
This is a known phenomenon, not unique to my father. It’s called “sundowning.” It’s quite common.
My father isn’t at the bird call stage (yet, and hopefully never), but you can’t talk to him about anything substantive after dinner, and he starts to think he owns the facility where he resides, and all the people in the common room are his guests, hanging out in his living room, watching a movie with him. For the most part, he’s okay with that – he likes most of them – but obviously he is not understanding his living situation.
I have a CNA who is saintly, but when I mentioned the sundowner next door she yelped and changed the subject rather than say anything bad about her. I’ve never seen her react like that.
I’m posting an update in the hope this will help someone else. We did not have to go to court to get legal guardianship. My relative’s wife has power of attorney. Here’s how we got him in a care facility:
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We went to an emergency room and said he has dementia and we needed to get him “medically cleared.” They did labs and ran tests.
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They then sent paperwork (I believe similar to temporary commitment.) to an intermediate care facility we’d previously selected and set things up with. It’s actually a behavioral health center. There’s a geriatric psychiatrist on staff who adjusted his meds. He’d have had PT if he’d needed it, but he didn’t.
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The nursing home came to the intermediate place and did an evaluation. Then he was transported from the intermediate place to the nursing home.
When we took him to the ER, we told him his meds needed adjusting, and his regular doc couldn’t get him in. (I don’t know how much of that he understood. He’s in pretty bad shape.) We told him the ER ran the tests but another doc had to decide what to do about his meds, and that’s how we got him into the intermediate place. One nurse told us putting a dementia patient into a facility is much harder on the spouse than it is on the patient, and I think that’s true. He’s doing well, and his wife is doing much better without all the strain of caring for him 24/7.
Thanks for the update.
I’m glad to hear that she was able to find a way through this.