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In Arizona we have had 2 caregivers kill the person they were caring for in the last 2 weeks. Both cases were the seniors' offspring. Is this overwhelming desperation happening in other areas? Just curious because we have a very large senior population with many instances of issues with caregivers.

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This country needs to make it easier to get help. Medicaid needs up their cap. People are falling thru the cracks because they make too much for Medicaid but not enough for AL.

Families need to be able to get affordable help.
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Shell38314 May 2019
That is so true! Plus, the caregivers need more help as well.
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Last month we had a grandma (52 I believe) shoot and kill her twin 8 year old grandsons.

Their mom had died and she became their guardian, non-verbal autistic children and her friends said that she was overwhelmed with caring for these young boys. I can't even imagine, twins are little gangsters anyway, then to have the challenges these poor boys had.

Does anyone know what happens if you tell your case worker that you are all used up and can't do it anymore?

Before anyone gets mad, I in no way endorse harming anyone who you have been intrusted to care for, actually I think violence is a really poor solution to anything. So for those of you that have said I don't care about others, keep it to yourself please. I am hoping that as caregivers we can be the change we would like to see. That takes hard conversations and bad guys from my experience, because someone needs to stand up and say enough mr. and ms. politician, your bs rhetoric is not helpful and you need to see the reality, not polling numbers.

Maybe my kids or grandkids will have options we don't.
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50sChild May 2019
Yes, I told my Hospice social worker that I was used up, three times. Her response was always with a patronizing voice: "I didn't know that, I am so very sorry." And then she stops phoning me with Dad's updates each time for weeks (I never ask her to stop phoning, and explicity tell her I need 1x/week updates and referrals). So I then request via text she please resume giving me 5-10 minutes/week. She then claims she never stopped phoning (a lie). So I'm royally gaslit.

I share with her via text that I feel gaslit. She texts back they haven't forgotten about me, and "Don't worry about your father, you have your hands full." I ask the social worker what their stated objective of "family support" actually means. She answers she's there for me. She has never been! This caseworker is no help whatsoever. I get my update feeds from a way-overworked and saintly daytime caregiver. The hospice revolving doors RN's are no different. Hospice RN and SW caseloads are actually magically like my caregiving "caseload" (see below, includes volunteers, contractors, neighbors, personnel smoothing) -- 14 people. They can't walk away because their livlihood depends on a certain "look."

The following paragraphs are just a riff-rant, no need to read because you all know it. The above paragraph is just my answer to the caseworker question.

Dad is bedridden and alone overnight. As I tune into Dad's remote cams at night (doesn't qualify for skilled nursing/Medicaid I've taken loan to cover home care) -- he looks like a corpse, skeletal, worse every day/week. His evening VA caregivers are surly and minimalistic. Hospice Social Worker claims he looks wonderful, great, amazing, he's 50 again (he's 98, wasting), and that hospice has no responsibility to train or quality check the early evening caregivers or visit during 10 p.m.-9:30 a.m. unless there is oxygen-type distress. I am a silently angry dead robot because I don't want to alienate hospice or do violence and I don't want to deal with getting another hospice and deal with yet another cycle of staffing changes and coordination. I count 14 regular caregiving contacts for my Dad, all to keep this house of cards rolling. I have lymphoma, CFS, IBS, eye and facial twitches, cry/body shakes from micro triggers all day long, hyperventalate, maniacal yoga in 1-2-minute takes, and I do the dead man walk -- zombie walk away, against my better angel. I am beginning to ignore calls. I legally cover my seemingly uncaring tracks. I keep Dad in his home, per hospice/medical/legal advice, because so far the home equity loans can be paid off whereas not so in a facility. Then I screw up my own domain and relationship issues. I have no time for support groups, but fit 1x/week therapy in, for which I am very grateful. Managed anger and sorrow. God help the Susan Smiths.

Occasionally I try to communicate with my local Congressional/lobbyist representatives. I get back form letters. THERE IS NO-ONE minding this store. Sometimes I think that Boomers get a bad rap because we don't have time to advocate for ourselves. What caregiver can write an Oscar-winning movie script or go viral with their daily lives?
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In no way shape or form is killing someone the right thing to do. On this side of my brain I understand how a caregiver can lose it... When my mother becomes combative and obnoxious, especially when I am trying to dry her or get her to move to a position on the bed so she doesn't fall, she can't move but she fights. I don't get it. I've told her that if she hits her me again, I am going to defend myself. So unnecessary for that to happen in my mind. I feel bad for feeling that way and I've snapped and cursed at her. Never thought all if my life that I would address my mother that way. I usually get in my car and drive around until I resolve myself. She's safer in the house alone than with an abusive caretaker when it's her daughter.
I am praying 🙏 for me and all the rest of us who are emotionally burned out and want out. Looking for a place for Mom to be cared. She's bed ridden and I can't handle her; like to move her to bathe or for toiletting, sit her up in bed, etc. Sadly I am realizing more and more that I just don't want to do this job anymore. How dare I. After all, I am getting old too and hope that someone would look out for me too...
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Isthisrealyreal May 2019
Psalms23, please do not feel bad that it is now time for a village to care for your mom.

Loving someone includes making the really difficult decisions, the really unpopular choices and putting their needs above their wants.

Praise God that you have a way to defuse yourself. Knee jerk reactions can be hard to deal with later on, I'm talking about being physical with a bedridden old lady, not blowing steam at a combative belligerent patient. No excuses but if you don't leak (vent) you blow. I always think of a pressure cooker when I start feeling it's to much. So you blow a little hot steam, better than blowing your lid and taking someone's head off.

Best of luck finding the perfect fit for your mom.

Forgiving yourself is important as in accepting the forgiveness He gives. Hugs!
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I think it happens more than we hear about it. I know of a few incidents that happened in California and the media portrayed them as “domestic violence” or murder suicides, just a random attack. They don’t mention that it was a caregiver, caregiver burn out or anything! And I don’t know if that’s because law enforcement doesn’t mention anything about that. There is a case that happened locally to me , last month if I recall correctly, it was a husband & wife and the wife was physically harmed (life threatening IIRC). The news made mention that she was disabled and completely dependent on her husband. And I knew it was probably caregiver burn out related. It wasn’t just some random act against her. I’m not at all defending him BTW. I’m just saying that in this case and in many others, the news makes it seem like it was just some random thing done by a crazy person when it’s really a situation involving a caregiver that probably reached their breaking point. Caregiver burn out and lack of help for caregivers is a real problem.
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Isthisrealyreal May 2019
It does make you wonder how frequently domestic violence is caregivers beyond desperate and pushed over the edge. No excuses but if it is the reason then it needs to be clarified.
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We had a case here in Cleveland, Ohio a few years ago involving an adult son who was developmentally disabled who was caring for his elderly mother with dementia. There was extended family who apparently was content to let the man care for their mother with what it sounded like from the news reports, minimal involvement from them. The man “lost it” one day and stabbed his mother to death. In a tearful and impassioned plea at his sentencing, one of the sisters said they had no idea the man was under such pressure from taking care of their mother. To be honest, she was so clueless about what he went through, it was infuriating. It was a lesson learned by the family that came at a terrible cost.
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Isthisrealyreal May 2019
As we see all to frequently here, if it doesn't interfere with their lives it isn't even on their radar.

What happened to the young man, do you know?
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Faeriefiles, no it was brutal over the end type murders, one the man beat his mother and then tried to burn the evidence and the other the woman used a pillow to suffocate her mother.

The media interviewed neighbors and the consensus was that the moms were lovely, kind little old women and the kids were wacked mental cases.

I couldn't help thinking that my mom would be portrayed as a good neighbor because she doesn't treat her neighbors like she does her "loved ones".

Last year a mom killed her senior son because he wanted to put her in AL.

Will it take a high profile individual to be driven to the edge before the media starts reporting the truth about caring for individuals who have been kept alive by medication and drastic surgeries, among other issues?

I live in the most dangerous city in AZ so I don't pay particular attention to the gang killings and such, but these really got my attention.
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I hear of this occasionally, or of a spouse committing suicide while being the sole caretaker. Most recently I heard about a mother who had cancer for the 2nd time (maybe terminal then). She was the caretaker for her adult daughter who was handicapped. She killed her daughter because she couldn’t take care of her & didn’t want her put in a home.
I’d have a hard time convicting these people if I were on the jury.
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Isthisrealyreal May 2019
I agree, desperation is hard to convict.
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Bad economy, lack of support, people losing their jobs and everything is so expensive..and the cost of care is exorbitant.
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It's a sobering thought, but I wonder if the second case would have received so much attention if it hadn't happened so soon after the first.

It's surprisingly difficult to categorise and then to analyse the information. But in 2017 there were 369 recorded murders* (murders specifically, not including manslaughter or other types of homicide) in Arizona. Of those eight victims were over the age of 75, five men and three women. Bearing in mind that these were murders, and therefore not the result of negligence or accident, you have to conclude that - although thank God you still wouldn't call this common - it's a tragic theme in society that persists in the background whether or not the media are paying attention.

Nineteen people (age not specified) were murdered by their son or daughter.

Seven victims were aged from one to four years. I wish I hadn't looked at that bit.

I can think of at least three murders of vulnerable elders here in the UK in the last year or two without even pausing to look it up; and I'm pretty sure that if I were to look I'd find a lot more.

Unfortunately, what rarely gets reported is a detailed history of exactly what happened and how the people involved came to such a sad outcome. Headlines tend to be more about outrage than about learning, because that's what sells. Then people stop paying attention and move on to the next story.

*http://www.azdps.gov/sites/default/files/media/FINAL_Crime_in_Arizona_2017.pdf
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Isthisrealyreal May 2019
What you didn't see in the 2017 was that number has increased. There was a woman that is going through trial right now for starving her 3 year old son to death.

Animals don't even do the horrendous things that humans do to one another.

Sad state for the human race.
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My sister, brother, and I have been taking care of our mom for a couple of years now. Mostly sis and me because brother still works but he does what he can. We were checking on her morning and night and making sure she had her breakfast, meds, and supper. Recently she fell so now we are doing round the clock care. We do have a bit of help but still, after only 3 weeks, I am exhausted. I feel like she's probably not as much trouble as a lot of seniors. She does't ask for much and she just watches tv all day but still the sitting and keeping things straight, fixing a little to eat, etc. have completely worn me out already. What am I going to do in a few more weeks? Luckily, we did put mom's house in a trust so if she has to go to the NH we should be okay. I empathize with you and until I found this site I had no idea what care givers went through and then to do it myself! Truthfully, I am amazed that anyone can do this for years on end. I often thought about the people who work at NH and how hard they work. I suppose a big difference for them is that they are not emotionally attached to the ones they care for. I don't know what we'll all do but I just pray that God will give us the strength to do it.
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Psalms23 May 2019
Amen. God's strength 🙏 is the only one that is strong enough to make it...
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