We have noticed huge changes in my 75-year-old mom.
She has made big financial mistakes, she blames mistakes on others & she doesn’t think anything’s wrong. She forgets important details to conversations which lead to financial mistakes.
She moved from CA to CO two years ago, moved again down the street last Nov. and now has decided to move back to CA where she has a smaller house and she’ll sell the two houses in CO.
She wants to change her trust, won’t let me talk to her doctor and all of this has escalated in the last two weeks. We’ve had nothing but stressful interactions as we are constantly fixing all that she messes up. Seems like stressful conversations trigger her to become angry. It’s always someone else’s fault but never her. She refuses to see what we see and are trying to communicate.
How do I tell her doctor about all this. I tried to call them but when they returned my call, they couldn’t reach me so they called my mom. That really angered her and she blocked me from talking to them. I don’t know how to help if we can’t get a proper diagnosis. She seems to tell people different stories as long as it makes her look good.
The flu jab or something, with a pre-written letter slid over with *Concerns* as the heading?
2. Straight up: Mom you are not making sense. We are going to talk to your Doctor. Because I care about you. I will not let you make big financial decisions in this state. I mean it & will be taking action. I will talk to your Lawyer too.
You write a note to her doc, keep it short, they are busy people. Write about all your concerns.
You should tell doc that mom does not want you to talk to him.
You can tell doc whatever you want, but HIPPA will not allow doc to tell you anything unless mom has signed a release or you have POA.
It is time for mom to see an elder law attorney to get all those important documents in place.
As far as my mother's situation was concerned, I make her her appointments and take her to them, and before we get there, I write a little note that I slip to the secretary at the front desk and ask her to relay it to the doctor, or if I'm not able to do that, I slip the paper to the doctor at some point while we are in the exam room.
I just have bullet points written down about what's going on. All the doctors I've dealt with have been really smooth and take the conversation where they need to take it after they see my concerns. It usually only takes them a few seconds to realize that my mom doesn't have any short-term memory recall. In a lot of cases my mom just got mad because she couldn't realize why we were there and started thinking that I was "keeping her under my thumb", as she likes to put it, whenever I ask her to do something she downright refuses to do, like shower or see the doctor. 😑
The second step I had to go through was getting her through the mri appointment as I was looking for a dementia diagnosis, which very shortly after being in the mri machine, she got agitated and upset and demanded to know why she was there, who brought her there and who put them up to this! Anyway, however long she was in the machine for after being given lorazepam, they managed to get enough of the scan of her brain for the memory care specialist doctor to analyze and make a decision on. It also didn't help that when I took her to the memory care specialist doctor after the mri that in 2 minutes of being separated from me in the waiting room, she was demanding to know why she was there and they would explain and then 45 seconds later she would ask again about why she was there and who brought her there and she was very agitated and upset and they just couldn't get anywhere with her so they never got to actually do the cognitive tests with her. They made their decision based on what they witnessed of her behavior.
Just a bit of information here in case you or anyone else reading this isn't aware, if a person waits too long to go in for a memory Care diagnosis, the doctor told me that eventually, they are unable to determine what type of dementia it is because it all ends up looking the same on an mri. She says if you want to know what type of dementia they have, they need to be brought in at the first signs of cognitive decline. This would have happened sooner, but at that time my father was responsible for my mom and he just kept making excuses and dropping the ball and much time went by before I was able to get her in there myself and this was the response the doctor gave me, that they couldn't tell me exactly what kind she had because she was too far gone. It is very saddening and made me even more bitter and angry towards my dad for not being responsible for her. I guess in his case, " in sickness and health" didn't mean much 😔
She's finally getting assessed by a neuro-psychiatrist at the prompting of a friend. Waiting on the outcome.
You can have her assessed through the court, if you cannot get her to go in. She will be in for a couple of days of observation, etc.