Where can we place my mother, who requires constant care, if the nursing homes won't take her?

Hospitals can't kick you out, they have to follow rules to discharge. If you do not believe what the hospitalist is saying, then ask /demand nicely that there be a full work-up and consult.

Let the discharge planner know that you will be watching this very carefully and remind her about the ugly news coverage when hospitals try to dump patients.....do it sweetly while asking her help. Other than that unless you can actually be there, it seems that you will be spending alot of time on the phone this Christmas. I think that regardless of how stressful it is, the situation you are describing is serious enough where you and your family will have to temporarily buck up and find someone to advocate for you. The consequences of not doing it sound pretty harsh for your mom and probably your dad too. Start with calling the Parkinsons organization and speaking to someone who might be able to give you contacts and suggestions - you might also because your mom is younger call what ever service agency (Medicaid?) is handling payment for her care and enlist them - if she has social security disability then call them too.

Just remember that you have to take action to get to a space where you can relax. If you & the family give up temporarily, you will lose ground and it will impact both your parents.

Hope I am not out of line saying this, but if your boyfriend can support you through this he is a keeper - if he makes you choose between him & doing right by your family then you have a glimpse into your future that might not be what you had envisioned. Hope he is a stand up guy and helps you!

Scarytoast hello!
First of all, go on this mini vacation. Step back from the situation and take a breather so maybe you can see things a little clearer. Call your local office of aging and adult services. They have an abundance of resources at their fingertips, from nursing homes to medicaid information to emergency food sources. They could also help in finding temporary placement until something else comes along.

If your mother has behavioral problems in the facility she's in now, but not at home, that says something about your moms frame of mind and the care of the facility. She's uncomfortable you already said because her back hurts. That's a key to mind setting. I know your sisters have their own issues, but try to talk to them about all of you taking shifts where mom is at. Be apart of her care! If mom has someone there who understands her, maybe the staff will see it isn't HER behavioral problem but theirs!!

Call your moms health care provider and see if there is a specialist that could be brought in. You need to know exactly what it is you're dealing with.

Annlidot and Kelleybean, I wanted you to know that your comments really helped me today. After I read your comment Annlidot, I knew you were right -- I can't just let my family be paralyzed by this situation and do nothing, or it will end in a total disaster. I met my dad and my sister at the hospital. We talked about how mom might end up having to go to a place that's far away, and what we will do if that happens. We didn't come up with a plan for it really, since we don't know where they will send her.

With all of us there, I called the social worker at the hospital who is in charge of discharge planning. She told me that we DO have to accept the first placement the find for mom, but that they will NOT kick her out on the street just because she doesn't need hospital care. They have to send her to a place that will be able to take care of her, and that's why it's taking so long -- because most places don't want to deal with the "behavioral issues." I asked the social worker how wide the radius was that they could force us to send her, and she said that she didn't know but that she would find out. We are hoping it is limited to the county and not anywhere in the state, since this is not a small state and a distant placement would really limit our ability to see her and help with her care.

Then my sister came with me and we talked to one of the nurses about the behavioral issues, and tried to get an idea of what they mean by that and why they are expecting her to do so many things that she can't physically do. I thought that we did understand each other pretty well, and agreed in the end that there might be unresolved issues with her physical pain and symptoms, and maybe with her behavior too. The nurse said that the behavior issues were mostly asking for an unrealistic amount of help, like asking time be repositioned many times or to have pain cream rubbed on her often, stuff like that. It is more requests for care than they can really handle. I told them I understood how it can really be a drain to take care of all the things mom needs when she is in an off period and in pain. I guess I just never thought this counted as a behavioral issue, but I can see now that this is the terminology that the social workers and the doctors are using for when someone is asking for help but it doesn't seem totally necessary. The nurse said she could look into having a psychological consult done.

The doctor was not there at the time, but when I talked to the doctor yesterday it went pretty badly so it might be better than I talked to the nurse today instead. She also said she would talk to the hospital staff about trying to force her to do things that are painful or that she can't do. I'm not sure if that will have an effect, since the doctor and the day time nurse did not offer to do this, but at least it was nice that she was willing to look at things from our perspective too. I think part of it is that in the hospital, they are used to making people do things even if they are painful, as part of their recovery from surgery or whatever -- but this situation is different, because she just needs long term care. I still think that they are making problems that are actually physical (like not being able to move) into problems that are psychological (like being unwilling to move). The nurse in the end said she did understand that mom sometimes actually can't move, so in the end I felt like that was a victory, considering how badly things have been going.

We have called but have not heard back from mom's state social worker about this situation, but the discharge coordinator said that she was in contact with another, higher level social worker from the state. I feel a little better about the situation now, I am pretty sure that they will not kick her out on the street (although it is still a fear that I have in the back of my mind). It will be bad if they discharge her to a place that is very far away or that can't take care of her in the long term, but we will have to find a way to make it work.

Scary, Good for you in taking a stance! Asking what the heck was going on. Even if the care facility is out of the way, it COULD potentially be only temporary. I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your bf! Take care.

Scary, I am a social worker in a hospital and in our area the nursing facilities that have seperate units for people with behavioral problems are few and far between. You may have to accept her being placed a couple of hours away but I know in the facilities that we work with , some of the people placed initially in these units become stable enough to be placed in the general nursing home population. Once this is done and is successful, you can ask that she be transferred to a nursing home closer to you. In other words they would have proof that she will be appropriate to be placed with their other residents. Best wishes for success.

Well, mom is STILL in the hospital waiting to be discharged. They have now found a nursing home that says they can take her. This one is about an hour and a half away from my family, like you predicted Starlight. They are going to send her there as soon as there is an open medicaid bed, which they keep saying will be any day.

I was upset before about her being sent so far away, but now I am really hoping that they discharge her there soon. The doctors and nurses in the hospital are still not taking her muscle spasms and neurological issues very seriously, and when she is in pain and asks to be repositioned, or tries to ask for other help, many of the staff still tell her no. They say that she can do those things herself, because when she is having an "on" period, she can. It frustrating to see medical professionals treat her this way. I know that they can't always do everything she asks, and that sometimes she will have to be in pain because there may not be anything they can do -- but it breaks my heart to see them tell her that she could move around herself if she wanted, when her muscles are totally rigid and she has trouble even opening her eyes. I have given up on them, because they are not willing to listen to my family or my mom about her condition, or to do anything else to treat her symptoms. Someone from my family has been there everyday with her since she has been in the hospital, and we have tried to talking to the staff members about this multiple times. Talking to the doctors and nurses in the hospital has NOT helped, and they are extremely defensive when we bring up these issues. At this point the doctors will not visit her even if she requests it, because I guess they are treating her as being there for non-medical reasons. Which makes sense, but we can't take her to another doctor until she is outpatient again. I am praying that the new nursing home staff will be more understanding about her neurological condition and at least acknowledge her physical inability to move sometimes.

I somehow feel compelled to comment again here with another update. My mom has been in the hospital now for almost a month. They were trying to send her to a far away nursing home for people with behavioral problems, but when someone from there came to evaluate her they did not agree with the hospital that she has serious mental health problems. So they wouldn't take her because she has only minor mental health problems and other places won't take her because they say her mental health problems are too serious. Most of her actual problems are neurological. It is getting completely ridiculous. She needs long term care and basically every nursing home in the region with an available medicaid bed has rejected her. We keep re-explaining to everyone that it is not an option to take her home because our family's house has been auctioned. There is not a safe place to take her where she can get 24/7 care. The hospital agrees that she needs 24/7 care, and is now trying to send her to and adult family home, but the state is refusing to pay enough for her to go to one where they can actually take care of her 24/7. I'm not sure what will happen, but my family has started contacting government officials and I am looking for a lawyer who might be able to help us even though we are practically broke. She needs to be placed somewhere that can actually provide a safe environment and care for her.... I'm really starting to wonder if there is a way to make that happen.

There is a woman in our church with what she called "stiff mans disease' I just looked it up and I'm going to paste it here. It's a neurological problem that causes her to absolutely stiffen up. Hope this at least points you in some direction.
Stiff-man Syndrome is a rare disease of severe progressive muscle stiffness of the spine and lower extremities with superimposed muscle spasms triggered by external stimuli or emotional stress. Typically symptoms begin between the age of 30 and 50 and respond to benzodiazepines. EMG shows a characteristic abnormality and anti-GAD (glutamic acid decarboxylase) antibodies, which are very specific, are present in 60% of people with the disease.

Key words: Stiff Person Syndrome, Moersch and Woltman Syndrome, Anti-GAD antibody, Stiff man syndrome

One thing I know for sure they cant kick your mom out this happen to my family last year . they tried to make me take her home , but she had come from skilled nursing.and I was unable to care for her
she lost her bed at the place she was staying and had to stay in a local hospital for six months. she is now in another town that is about a 20 minute drive I pray it all works out for your family

Sadandlonelymom,
Thanks for thinking of us. Do you know if medicaid paid for your mom to stay in the hospital? I'm asking because the health insurance company is going to stop paying for her hospital stay at that time, and the discharge coordinator (who works for the health insurance company) is now saying to my family that we should find a place to take her so she doesn't end up in the homeless shelter. It seems like since she is on medicaid which paid for the nursing home, maybe that should pay for the hospital stay until she is placed?