Parents have reached crisis mode. Feeling overwhelmed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody "needs" to be in a nursing home, as many posters say. Your parents made their choice. Why can you not just leave them to it? As long as they are not driving and are not harming others, why can't they just live the way they are in peace? Might they both fall and die over the course of 5 days because neither can get up? Possibly. Might they screw up their medications and die of heart failure? Yes. If that's they way they choose to go, so what? Seriously. What is that worse than eating up resources dying a slow, useless, painful death in a nursing home? This is what my mother is doing, because my older sisters wouldn't drop the issue until my parents finally relented. My father died two years later, and 18 of those months was in a delirium in a hospital bed. Now, my mother lives in memory care and says she wishes she were dead every day. They would have been better off falling down the stairs going out the way they wished. The nursing care industry is a racket.

I get what you’re saying. I would not want to die in a state run nursing home either, but wouldn’t it be inhumane to leave them to starve in their house alone, him not being able to even go to the bathroom without help, and her with dementia and unable to care for herself? I think a quick passing from a heart attack or sudden fall sounds merciful but that is different from starving to death slowly.

we will try to insist that their doctor order hospice care for my dad. We are going to ask the doc to hospitalize both of them. So far social services has not called despite the doctor saying they should be in touch in 24 hours, so we will start calling other agencies.

I am getting ready to go down to relieve my brother so will probably not have time to reply but I really appreciate everyone’s input. This sucks and I sure as heck do not want to do this to my own kids.

Except if they go to a hospice center hospice provides support but little physical care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody "needs" to be in a nursing home, as many posters say. Your parents made their choice. Why can you not just leave them to it? As long as they are not driving and are not harming others, why can't they just live the way they are in peace? Might they both fall and die over the course of 5 days because neither can get up? Possibly. Might they screw up their medications and die of heart failure? Yes. If that's they way they choose to go, so what? Seriously. What is that worse than eating up resources dying a slow, useless, painful death in a nursing home? This is what my mother is doing, because my older sisters wouldn't drop the issue until my parents finally relented. My father died two years later, and 18 of those months was in a delirium in a hospital bed. Now, my mother lives in memory care and says she wishes she were dead every day. They would have been better off falling down the stairs going out the way they wished. The nursing care industry is a racket.

I get what you’re saying. I would not want to die in a state run nursing home either, but wouldn’t it be inhumane to leave them to starve in their house alone, him not being able to even go to the bathroom without help, and her with dementia and unable to care for herself? I think a quick passing from a heart attack or sudden fall sounds merciful but that is different from starving to death slowly.

we will try to insist that their doctor order hospice care for my dad. We are going to ask the doc to hospitalize both of them. So far social services has not called despite the doctor saying they should be in touch in 24 hours, so we will start calling other agencies.

I am getting ready to go down to relieve my brother so will probably not have time to reply but I really appreciate everyone’s input. This sucks and I sure as heck do not want to do this to my own kids.

If you want insurance or Medicare to pay you can’t just have a doctor magically hospitalize them. There has to be an acute injury or acute illness. I think the poster who said wait it out and see what happens is right. Cruel as it sounds. Once you become involved there is no backing out. I would much rather die from a fall or dehydration in my house than spend years in a Medicare/Medicaid memory care bed.

[Anonymous]

OP, hospice care probably isn't your answer. Hospice is only available for patients who have less than 6 months to live, so you'll need a diagnosis that is consistent with that. Even advanced stage dementia patients can live for years, and so it is particularly hard for Alzheimers patients to get qualified for hospice. We went through this with a parent who was unable to engage in self-care and limited to pureed foods. Still didn't qualify until he was very close to death.

It sounds like you don't even know what is wrong with your dad. Unless you can produce a diagnosis for a terminal illness, even being very elderly and going downhill won't be sufficient to get him hospice care.

[Anonymous]

If one or the other of them does end up admitted to the hospital, before discharge the social worker there will want to know what the conditions are at home. It sounds like potentially neither one of them would be discharged into the care of the other.

You could use this tool of the geriatric care manager professional association to find a local one near your parents: https://www.aginglifecare.org/ALCAWEB/Shared_Content/ALCA_Directory/ALCA_Find_an_Expert.aspx

They might have ideas, know the options, be your eyes on the scene, etc. but it would cost some money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody "needs" to be in a nursing home, as many posters say. Your parents made their choice. Why can you not just leave them to it? As long as they are not driving and are not harming others, why can't they just live the way they are in peace? Might they both fall and die over the course of 5 days because neither can get up? Possibly. Might they screw up their medications and die of heart failure? Yes. If that's they way they choose to go, so what? Seriously. What is that worse than eating up resources dying a slow, useless, painful death in a nursing home? This is what my mother is doing, because my older sisters wouldn't drop the issue until my parents finally relented. My father died two years later, and 18 of those months was in a delirium in a hospital bed. Now, my mother lives in memory care and says she wishes she were dead every day. They would have been better off falling down the stairs going out the way they wished. The nursing care industry is a racket.

You can't stop them from driving. My mother was told not to drive after her stroke, did it anyway, and totaled the car within 5 minutes of getting in it. Went right through a red light.

I think you should take your mother out of memory care so she can go home, PP. What could go wrong?

Take the keys.

They find a way, trust me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody "needs" to be in a nursing home, as many posters say. Your parents made their choice. Why can you not just leave them to it? As long as they are not driving and are not harming others, why can't they just live the way they are in peace? Might they both fall and die over the course of 5 days because neither can get up? Possibly. Might they screw up their medications and die of heart failure? Yes. If that's they way they choose to go, so what? Seriously. What is that worse than eating up resources dying a slow, useless, painful death in a nursing home? This is what my mother is doing, because my older sisters wouldn't drop the issue until my parents finally relented. My father died two years later, and 18 of those months was in a delirium in a hospital bed. Now, my mother lives in memory care and says she wishes she were dead every day. They would have been better off falling down the stairs going out the way they wished. The nursing care industry is a racket.

You can't stop them from driving. My mother was told not to drive after her stroke, did it anyway, and totaled the car within 5 minutes of getting in it. Went right through a red light.

I think you should take your mother out of memory care so she can go home, PP. What could go wrong?

Take the keys.

And then they can’t get food, etc. And no they don’t use delivery services as they don’t do anything online, and to add to that, no one lives near them and they have no friends in the area anymore. In short, none of this is simple. You want to make it simple but it isn’t. The fact is, when someone deteriorates to the point where they can’t care for themselves anymore and refuse help in, that alone is a sign of not being mentally right anymore. At that point, family should step in and if they are unsuccessful, the county/state should

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If one or the other of them does end up admitted to the hospital, before discharge the social worker there will want to know what the conditions are at home. It sounds like potentially neither one of them would be discharged into the care of the other.

You could use this tool of the geriatric care manager professional association to find a local one near your parents: https://www.aginglifecare.org/ALCAWEB/Shared_Content/ALCA_Directory/ALCA_Find_an_Expert.aspx

They might have ideas, know the options, be your eyes on the scene, etc. but it would cost some money.

There are one or two people on this board that ‘patrol’ it to troll. What you are saying is true, even when the trolls say it is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody "needs" to be in a nursing home, as many posters say. Your parents made their choice. Why can you not just leave them to it? As long as they are not driving and are not harming others, why can't they just live the way they are in peace? Might they both fall and die over the course of 5 days because neither can get up? Possibly. Might they screw up their medications and die of heart failure? Yes. If that's they way they choose to go, so what? Seriously. What is that worse than eating up resources dying a slow, useless, painful death in a nursing home? This is what my mother is doing, because my older sisters wouldn't drop the issue until my parents finally relented. My father died two years later, and 18 of those months was in a delirium in a hospital bed. Now, my mother lives in memory care and says she wishes she were dead every day. They would have been better off falling down the stairs going out the way they wished. The nursing care industry is a racket.

You can't stop them from driving. My mother was told not to drive after her stroke, did it anyway, and totaled the car within 5 minutes of getting in it. Went right through a red light.

I think you should take your mother out of memory care so she can go home, PP. What could go wrong?

Take the keys.

And then they can’t get food, etc. And no they don’t use delivery services as they don’t do anything online, and to add to that, no one lives near them and they have no friends in the area anymore. In short, none of this is simple. You want to make it simple but it isn’t. The fact is, when someone deteriorates to the point where they can’t care for themselves anymore and refuse help in, that alone is a sign of not being mentally right anymore. At that point, family should step in and if they are unsuccessful, the county/state should

You can order food and have it delivered.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thank you so, so much to all the PP's who suggested hospitalization. I was not able to make it down there due to getting sick, but my brother took them both to the ER and they both had conditions that warranted being admitted. It seems likely now that they will be placed upon discharge into a nursing facility and from there we will look into getting them on medicaid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thank you so, so much to all the PP's who suggested hospitalization. I was not able to make it down there due to getting sick, but my brother took them both to the ER and they both had conditions that warranted being admitted. It seems likely now that they will be placed upon discharge into a nursing facility and from there we will look into getting them on medicaid.

This is great news, OP. Thanks for reporting back. With my parent, once we got into the hospital system, we could access resources in a way we just couldn't with him at home. The social workers there did a good job of helping us figure out what to do next.

One thing to know - they need to stay in the hospital three midnights to get skilled nursing covered by Medicare, so push to keep them there for that amount of time. I think this might vary state to state but worth asking the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all for your advice and kind words. Believe it or not brother and I do not even know the names of agencies to call because this all hit us two days ago and yesterday was the first day brother saw the situation in person. Even this simple tip to call aging and disability helps because we are so stunned. I also didn’t know there are two types of Medicaid.

We had been estranged due to their lifestyle choices that have made their condition worse financially than it needs to be. We didn’t know how bad things have gotten, but Dad needs help even getting to the bathroom. My brother has a hard time by himself moving dad around the house. He needs to find a wheelchair. No clue what his medical issue is but Brother took him to get blood work done yesterday against his will. Mom cannot manage on her own without Dad because of Alzheimer’s.

I hate to say this but neither brother and I want to support them financially nor can we really afford to do it. It’s hard to explain but there is some bad history between us due to their choices, but they now seem so helpless and frail that we feel really awful.

First: NO GUILT! NONE. Hear me? NO GUILT! It took me a long time to come to terms with same for the same reasons.

Now onto business as my father just started hospice. Five years in denial, refusing to go back to family cross country, my mother getting weaker and weaker and wanting to go, yet refused to just leave him (almost 66 years of marriage and all the dynamics that go with that). My father expected MediCARE to take care of all their needs. Of course it would not have. I love my Dad but the greatest gift now he will give to my mother is passing without leaving her financial destitute.

Now onto Medicaid. Let’s say your mother goes into memory care and your father insists on staying in the house. They can’t take it from him legally but can put a lein on it, so after he dies, they get paid for her care. If they are both in state care, Medicaid can indeed attach the house, and will. If my father lingers past Sept 2, he will have to go to a group home and in order to not be denied Medicaid, my sister will have to pre-pay that place and immediately pay the last 1/2 of real estate taxes to get the savings down to 2K so he will be approved. At that point, my mother would get his social security less $200, and perhaps keep hers, but the social worker says that Medicaid will attach the house. And if my mother decides to downsize, Medicaid will get immediately paid off the top.

What the state cannot do is tap into your resources. What they will do is try and guilt you into taking both your parents into your care, promising hospice care or help which Medicare does provide. But when you push them for details, they admit that the burden of the work falls on the family caregivers. Meaning that if only one or two people provide the hospicing, it’s a 24/7 job with them coming three times per week for a total of 2.25 hours. A TOTAL OF, not each visit. Those are about 45 minutes. The trauma this will cause you and your brother, and your families cannot be underestimated. I’ve done it for a relative with no real resources and damn near had a nervous breakdown. Don’t you DARE do that to yourself, nor should your brother do that to himself. Again, NO GUILT!

I wish there was a way I could contact you privately or you contact me, so I could help support you emotionally. I know how hard this is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thank you so, so much to all the PP's who suggested hospitalization. I was not able to make it down there due to getting sick, but my brother took them both to the ER and they both had conditions that warranted being admitted. It seems likely now that they will be placed upon discharge into a nursing facility and from there we will look into getting them on medicaid.

So happy for you. BEST outcome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody "needs" to be in a nursing home, as many posters say. Your parents made their choice. Why can you not just leave them to it? As long as they are not driving and are not harming others, why can't they just live the way they are in peace? Might they both fall and die over the course of 5 days because neither can get up? Possibly. Might they screw up their medications and die of heart failure? Yes. If that's they way they choose to go, so what? Seriously. What is that worse than eating up resources dying a slow, useless, painful death in a nursing home? This is what my mother is doing, because my older sisters wouldn't drop the issue until my parents finally relented. My father died two years later, and 18 of those months was in a delirium in a hospital bed. Now, my mother lives in memory care and says she wishes she were dead every day. They would have been better off falling down the stairs going out the way they wished. The nursing care industry is a racket.

OMG, it’s the 5 days person who offers nothing but misery. Go F yourself.

[Anonymous]

Could you and your brother hire a geriatric social worker? https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/basics/info-2020/geriatric-care-manager.html

DH was talking yesterday with a neighbor whose mother just passed, and she said that the person they hired was a godsend for coordinating care and tapping into resources.