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Groceries can be delivered.
Pharmacies can provide pre-sorted blister packs.
There are all sorts of ways to set up medication prompts.
Your being on hand holding your breath and standing by hasn't prevented her from locking herself out and walking to McDonalds in the dark - you might just as well have gone away for the weekend, no?

The thing is. There is more than one thing here.

1. You burning out. If you break down what you do into tasks, routines, services, you'll find that most of it can be done by somebody else or in some other way. There will be many solutions to help you step back and do less, if that will help. But from your description I don't think it's the workload so much as the stress and anxiety and constant heart in your mouth anticipation of disaster that's getting to you?

2. Sustainability. At the moment your mother can live at home because you are propping her up there. If you step away wham! - just like that - she will fall flat on her face. She won't be able to prepare meals, she may start forgetting to eat and drink altogether even assuming food is delivered, she'll regularly lock herself out, she won't take her medications or (God forbid) she may repeatedly take her medications. Of course you aren't even thinking of doing so, but that's what would happen. But there are other props, or rather sources of appropriate support, which could make her staying at home a reasonable option for the time being; only of course you won't feel relieved of responsibility until she is somebody *else's* responsibility, i.e. she is in full residential care. Tricky. The thing here is that "primary caregiver daughter can't take the worry any longer" carries no weight in the "does this lady need to be in residential care?" calculation. Provided there is adequate support in place, your constant worry about her is your problem, it isn't your mother's problem. This matters because even if the neurologist does hand you an official "Totally Away With The Fairies" certificate that won't in itself enable you to carry your mother bodily out of her house.

Your care co-ordinator - have you briefed her only to look for facilities, or is she offering a wider range of ideas than that?

It is a sensible assumption that your mother will eventually need residential care. It is therefore also sensible to look for it now, because the better shape a person is in to start with (generally speaking) the better the experience is likely to be overall. However. That doesn't mean that nothing can be improved while you wait, and accepting that here-and-now your mother wants to live at home - mentally getting on board with that - will free you to think of other ways to take the pressure off yourself.
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Thank you so much for the reply, Annabelle18. I'm so sorry to hear your story re: your mom. I read stories like this a lot, which are so sad. Sounds like you did the best that you could though, given how stubborn she was. Hindsight is 20/20, but I'm not sure how would you have 'forced' the move--just as I'm not sure how to force this as well. I know I need to act and I really want to, but I just need a plan. I haven't tried calling social services yet. I basically need a social worker/doctor, etc force her to move based on her medical condition/needs. Similar to an ER doctor telling a patient that they are unable to go home if there is no one there to care for them. I wonder if I psychiatrist could deem her

I think my mom would also feel the same and would enjoy a new place and being around people and having activities available. She's just very stubborn, in denial regarding what is going on with her, and doesn't like change.

I did just recently get ahold of an eldercare atty and my mom signed the POA. I am legally able to make financial decisions for her, but I'm pretty I don't have full say over her healthcare.

I located a Dr a few years ago for her and I've been taking her to all her appointments as well as a recent neurology appt so that we could get a true dementia diagnosis. None of this information lasts long in her brain though and then she's back into denial mode (this could also just be a feature of the dementia). Both doctors have told her that they think she's unsafe living at home and that she either needs in home care or to move, but she doesn't listen.

My new plan is to start taking tours so I can locate a place for her to land (whenever that is). She has a follow up appt with neurology where I'm sure they will tell her again that it's unsafe for her to live alone. I'm going to really double down at that appointment and also let her know that I think it's unsafe for her to be at home. At that point I'm going to try to time it so that she could quickly transition to this new place and just keep reiterating what the doctor's have told her. I may need to fib a bit and let her know it's just a trial run to see if she likes it, so she feels like she has some agency. Once she's there for a bit I think she'd likely forget how she got there and start making friends and feeling more content.
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babsjvd Jan 2022
Call ahead , at that neurology appointment, tell them you want for her to be checked for incapacitation. My state requires two drs to sign off. Nip that one in the bud while you are there.
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What a frustrating situation for you. My first question would be - does your mother have the legal paperwork that would name you as POA in a situation? Meaning, if her doctor declared her unable and incompetent to take care of herself and make sound decisions about her wellbeing and financial affairs, then that sets up things so that you become the POA. At which point you are legally entitled to make her decisions for her.

Which then, brings you to how to get her moved. If she isn't willing to be moved, which I am guessing she isn't since this is what I had to deal with my own mother, you have two choices - leave her where she is, where her abilities are compromised and she could be a danger to herself and others, or get her moved. But it isn't going to be pleasant or easy.

You could contact her doctor and speak to them about enlisting their help (they could contact social services/adult protective services). Or you could. Because then the only other way is yes, you would have to wait for her to cause harm to herself and end up in the ER where they won't let her go back to living alone. This as what happened to my 95 yo mother who refused, continually refused to even consider moving the AL. Even though I showed up weekly with groceries, laid out her meds in the pill boxes, picked up her rx, took her to doc appts, etc...she got to the point where she wasn't eating right (cookies, candy and ice cream), not sleeping because her dementia was causing her to hallucinate (and yes, the local police were summoned on several occasions because of 'someone out there trying to break in'--- not), etc. I couldn't be with her 24/7 and would get phone calls at all hours of day and night (she even had 4 news anchors from CNN in her living room one night having a discussion about world affairs .....yuup, sure they were..sigh).

Things finally changed when she fell trying to get out of her recliner and fell, breaking her femur by the hip...off to ER and no more going home- ever. But the fall resulted in her passing 8 weeks later. But she admitted that she shouldn't have been so stubborn and 'should' have moved to AL a 'few years' earlier to that 'nice place' we toured and had lunch at. Too late.

I tried. I tried oh so hard and for oh so long. But I couldn't never change her or how she was or thought. I 'should' have just forced the move and then dealt with her anger but at least she would have been in a safer environment. Hindsight.
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