Spouse criminal or civil liability for Alzheimer's patient

[Anonymous]

I think the previous poster had the best advice about “getting on the record” everywhere you can. You also need to say what is really happening “my father is now physically abusing my mother” — because he is. I know that may be hard to wrap your mind around, but your father is now abusive. It might not be “him” as you remember him to be, but it is part of his current behavior.

And also, really think about why you are so worried about prolonging his life given his current quality of life. Again, I know this is really hard to think about — but do you really want him to live to be 100 with the trajectory he is on?

[Anonymous]

it doesn't matter if it's alzheimer's, vascular dementia, FTD, or MCI. Unfortunately the anger and hitting and escaping in all of them comes before the bulk of the activities of daily living decline.

also understand that your mom may be resisting having someone come assist because she may be masking her own cognitive decline. right now, with both of you far away, she can blame any inconsistencies on your dad directly, or on the stress he is causing her.

things you can do to help yourself, as a physically distant child:

1) visit.
2) airtag the vehicles, and your moms purse and your dads wallet if possible. airtags can now be shared with multiple people. also set up your parents phones to share location with both of you.
3) install discreet cameras to monitor the property. amazon blink work well once set up. as an example, i had two in the basement, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one that could see the upstairs hallway. i eventually placed one in their bedroom that just viewed the door so i could have a better idea of where they and their cat were. (the cat getting lost/hiding was a common theme in the year before they were both committed to a nursing home by the state.) batteries need to be changed every few months, and they can be plugged in to a power outlet as well.
4) ensure all major bills are on autopay/do not need intervention, because mail will go missing. big ones: insurance payments (car, house, life, medicare + supplemental plans), utilities, mortgage, credit cards, property taxes. make sure you have login info for all important accounts like banking and pension and email and phone provider, including icloud if they have iphones. make sure they have online logins for SSA, Medicare, IRS. if setting up new accounts use a new gmail account you two control, and just auto-forward any email to their existing email accounts.
5) sign them up for USPS Informed delivery, ditto.
6) if there are dpoas and advanced directives already done, make sure you have copies, and make sure that they are on record with the bank. in the event something happens, it may take several weeks for a bank to evaluate/choose to accept a dpoa. if they haven't done them, that needs to get drive asap. your dad is still on the cusp of being able to sign for himself.
7) make sure their home insurance provider also issues them an umbrella liability policy, this should likely be for 2-5 million.
8) if possible, install an amazon echo for them in say the kitchen (again, through an email/amazon account you control.) it can be set up as a digital photo album, and if they are capable of interacting with it, a voice assistant can be excellent. (alexa, whats the weather today? alexa, call daughter1!) i installed one at their eventual memory care room which allowed me to observe the camera, interact with caregivers, etc.
9) find/copy/ safely secure documents like wills, dpoas, car titles, cemetery plot title, insurance declarations including house title insurance.
10) research assisted living and memory care communities near them, as well as near yourselves. at some point the crisis will happen, it's best to have a good idea of the plan you intend to execute, rather than scrambling on short notice when they are both in the hospital because your dad pushed your mom down and broke her leg.

good luck. it all sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again.

It is hard to back off when I'm called at work by a desperate mother because my father raged at the gerontologist and ran out of the office on to a street next to a busy road, with the doctor and my mom in hot pursuit. They couldn't find him. Fortunately I was able to track him via phone and directed the doctor how to find him using landmarks such as oh he's next to a pond on this street. Or she's calling and texting about how he shoved her and she shoved him back.

My sister and I feel completely helpless to help either of them. She only wants thoughts and prayers and repeats what a priest told her- that this is her burden and cross to bear.

She's desperate for him to age in place which we aren't disagreeing with, but if she dies first due to all the stress of this, we will have no choice to put him in a home which is precisely what she doesn't want. And we have told her as such but it's her cross to bear.

I guess I'm focused on semantics because people in our family think she won't get help because she thinks it's dementia and not Alzheimer's. She doesn't see how bad it will get because she saw how my grandmother lived to 102 with dementia and she thinks that's how it will go for him too.

This sounds horrible. I had a similar situation with my fathers denial about my mothers Alzheimer’s. We eventually got him to hire in home caregivers by enlisting help from the social worker at my mother’s doctors practice. It was a large geriatrics practice affiliated with a hospital so they had experience with these issues and were persistent (calling when he avoided coming in etc). Quality of the in home providers was not the best honestly but it helped at least stop The elopement. Then things hit rock bottom again later and ultimately when she was hospitalized for evaluation after a reaction to a medication, her doctors and the hospital social worker convinced him she could not safely be returned to the home without better and more extensive in home providers, and that finally persuaded him that memory care was necessary.

[Anonymous]

She’s Catholic? Her priest sounds useless but what about other ladies at her church? Is there a memory care place run by nuns?

[Anonymous]

Like these Carmelites… https://www.carmelitesystem.org/skilled-nursing-community-in-greater-cincinnati-oh/

[Anonymous]

I would tell your mom she needs to identify a place for him to go if something happens to her. She doesn’t have to “put” him there now, but if she doesn’t select the place, he’s stuck with whatever you and your sister can find. Show her some of the religious ones. She’s way past in home health aides tbh. The situation is going to get drastic quickly and her hand will be forced. Tell her that. You and sister are going to identify three possibilities, if she wants input best to speak up now. She is too overwhelmed to make a decision.

[Anonymous]

If there's any chance your mom lives near Charleston, there's an Alzheimers Association support group at the St Michaels Catholic Church.. https://www.saintmichaelsc.net/support-groups