WWYD: dad doesn’t want to take meds, I have no opinion but all communication goes through me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this country you can’t force elderly people to take medication. If you are in a nursing home or assisted living and you don’t want to take medication you can’t be forced.

OP you are doing enough. Unless you plan on arguing with your father every day about medication he won’t take it isn’t worth the effort. He will just start lying to you.

Nor do I think you should. My elderly father with dementia (early to mid stage) doesn’t take his medication any more. We don’t force it at all. No point in agitating him. One reminder and when he says no we move on to the next thing.

There is a point in one’s life where you need to begin weighing quantity vs quality

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get you, OP. Most of those replying probably don't have to deal with difficult elderly parents. You only have so much time in your life and your father is asking you to waste it because he wants to be difficult.
Most doctors also won't understand and expect you to be able to "make" your father do the right thing.

I learned to say over and over again, in regards to my mother, "She has full agency of her decisions. She doesn't want, I cannot, and I will not be drawn into the decisions she makes for herself ." It is like pleading the 5th in court. I've had to repeat it three or four times in some appointments. (Of course then my mother later says I must not really care about her if I didn't push her to follow doctor's orders. --sigh)

Agree with utilizing the portal. If you have a release to discuss with them, I send a message. "He doesn't want to take the full dose. He only wants to take half a dose. Should he do that or not take any?" If he can take a half a dose and is able to cut the pills himself he can do that. If he can't then he can take it every other day.

Not OP, but this is such an important point and it's why I started outsourcing more. I found not just physicians, but siblings and aunts/uncles think you have the magical powers to force something and they start making suggestions. Life got a lot less frustrating when I directed them all to the case manager. Even better mom could more than afford the case manager, but she was expensive and the siblings wanted to preserve their inheritance. When they complained about the expense I suggested they keep their calls short and to the point since she bills for them. When mom protested the cost I ignored it because before that all she did was threaten me with the inheritance. Let it go to a stranger to manager her care-win win. Mom doesn't pull all the manipulations and performances for the case manager, she just does what she needs to do. There were far fewer dramas from mom and from family when a stranger managed them and I feel the quality of care was better than when I was involved and so burned out.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Unless your life is extraordinarily burdened, OP, this is part of being a decent child to your parent. Why can't you be the go-between? You're lucky he's so healthy and his needs are not complicated.
[/quote]

Oh i don’t mind being the between when it’s real need. I refuse to explain to the dr that he doesn’t want to take prescribed meds because he thinks he doesn’t need them. Moreover I am not sure he needs them, but it’s his job to make that decision and find the arguments. He can do as he pleases for all I care.
He has eye problems and he can feel it and I have no problem with him taking his eye medication. [/quote]

Just translate and write the questions in the portal or call. They're reasonable questions and your dad lacks the skill. You don't need to justify or explain his pov or take ownership of his decision. He's an adult just with poor eyesight and English. You could also call the office and see if they offer a translator for patients who need it.[/quote]

Yes i am requesting a translator for him

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I think I didn’t explain it well. I take care of all his real needs - bring groceries, take him to appointments, etc.
Him being weird is where Indraw the line. Suppose he wanted to go to Walmart 100 miles away to get special mangoes. I wouldn’t take him. This is how I see his refusal to take meds. The dr said take them and come back in a month for lab work. I am happy to do that. But not take him there for nothing, for having to explain the he doesn’t think he needs meds.

It's not weird IMO to ask if he can split the dose. It should have been asked when it was prescribed, but oh well. This can be asked via portal or phone.

The dr just left a message saying she is writing a prescription. So there was no opportunity to ask.
I believe he doesn’t want to take even a lower dose now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this country you can’t force elderly people to take medication. If you are in a nursing home or assisted living and you don’t want to take medication you can’t be forced.

OP you are doing enough. Unless you plan on arguing with your father every day about medication he won’t take it isn’t worth the effort. He will just start lying to you.

Thank you, that’s what I think too! He can either talk to the dr himself thru a translator or he can just leave it be.

[Anonymous]

I’m pretty sure, at some point, your father was also busy with work and still had to care for you. How hard is it to send an inquiry to his doctor’s nurse regarding the statin dosage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get you, OP. Most of those replying probably don't have to deal with difficult elderly parents. You only have so much time in your life and your father is asking you to waste it because he wants to be difficult.
Most doctors also won't understand and expect you to be able to "make" your father do the right thing.

I learned to say over and over again, in regards to my mother, "She has full agency of her decisions. She doesn't want, I cannot, and I will not be drawn into the decisions she makes for herself ." It is like pleading the 5th in court. I've had to repeat it three or four times in some appointments. (Of course then my mother later says I must not really care about her if I didn't push her to follow doctor's orders. --sigh)

Agree with utilizing the portal. If you have a release to discuss with them, I send a message. "He doesn't want to take the full dose. He only wants to take half a dose. Should he do that or not take any?" If he can take a half a dose and is able to cut the pills himself he can do that. If he can't then he can take it every other day.

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I want to avoid. I think the drs talk to me mostly, not him. And I am ok with it when he is reasonable.
In this case he wants to take a lower dose, then nothing at all, then some combination of it. I don’t want to deal with it. He is not senile! He is free to explain himself or even avoid the visits. When it’s important I do take him and I advocate for him (like with his glaucoma).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this country you can’t force elderly people to take medication. If you are in a nursing home or assisted living and you don’t want to take medication you can’t be forced.

OP you are doing enough. Unless you plan on arguing with your father every day about medication he won’t take it isn’t worth the effort. He will just start lying to you.

Nor do I think you should. My elderly father with dementia (early to mid stage) doesn’t take his medication any more. We don’t force it at all. No point in agitating him. One reminder and when he says no we move on to the next thing.

There is a point in one’s life where you need to begin weighing quantity vs quality

Exactly!!!! Thank you! -OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m pretty sure, at some point, your father was also busy with work and still had to care for you. How hard is it to send an inquiry to his doctor’s nurse regarding the statin dosage?

Kids tend to grow up and become independent. Old people like attention and start asking for more and more effort, today it’s writing, tomorrow it’s calling, the day after it’s taking them somewhere they don’t need to be etc.

[Anonymous]

NP …. I think it is odd when there is a reply at 13:03. Then nothing for 7 hrs….then 5 replies in 6 minutes…. Is that what is called sock puppeting…..?

[Anonymous]

OP the people posting that you should devote hours to get your parent to take medication haven't dealt with difficult parents.

Family members have told me I should just lie about what the pills are, slip the pills into food, spend hours everyday convincing my mother to take her medication and finally threatening her she needs to take it or she won't get something.

Legally, you can't do that. And read the post about the person who spent five years with their parent in a hospital bed and needed a Hoyer lift so the parent must have been pretty incapacitated, having to shower the parent, then transferring parent to wheelchair then to be for nap. What kind of life is that. The vast majority of people if asked do you want to live like that would say no. I would never ever want anyone I cared about or loved to waste 4 years of their lives doing that for me.

[Anonymous]

OP, if your dad's pills aren't scored, you can get a pill splitter and evenly cut them that way. You can find them at any pharmacy.

Just in case he will be taking half a pill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dad is an immigrant and barely speaks English so I am in charge of all his communications with his dr.
Long story short dad eats healthy and takes long walks, isn’t overweight etc, but does get some bouts of high blood pressure and his cholesterol is a bit elevated. He was prescribed sone meds for it but is resistant towards taking them.
To be honest I don’t really care what he does and I have no strong opinion on whether he needs them, I just don’t want to be in the middle of it. He is now asking if I can ask if he can take half the dose of the statins he was prescribed etc, I don’t know what he wants to do with his HBP meds yet, but I am already super annoyed by all this wiffle waffling.

what should i do? he was told to start taking meds and follow up with the dr in a month. i am super busy at work until April. i am tempted to just tell him not to take the meds yet, and send him to his next appointment with an interpreter and let him figure it out instead of me being there.

Set him up in the Dr's patient portal and send messages back and forth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m pretty sure, at some point, your father was also busy with work and still had to care for you. How hard is it to send an inquiry to his doctor’s nurse regarding the statin dosage?

It’s beside the point but he failed to look out for me in some major ways. But whatever

[Anonymous]

OP here, there is a patient portal but I refuse to negotiate his absurd ideas. I spoke to him again about half a dose and he won’t do it either. Keeps telling me how his BP is normal lately and how his cholesterol is barely over the limit (he did study the results in the portal). I am not convinced enough that he needs the meds, but I am also not fully convinced he doesn’t need them. I want him to go through the labor of figuring it out, it’s not that difficult even for him. If he doesn’t want to take them - fine. If he wants to request new labs - fine. He can do it thru an interpreter, it’s not like I am leaving him in the cold.
I made an appointment for him in May and he can go from there. Thanks everyone for helping me work out a stance on all this.