Sister was placed in locked memory care unit against her will. Is this legal?

Frustrated209, who is taking care of your sister's husband now?

Has your sister been diagnosed with dementia? I think that would be a minimum requirement for placement in a memory care unit. If she had short term memory problems, agitation, and was directing anger toward her husband, that may have all been symptoms of dementia.

The only way for the daughter to have gained POA is for her mother to have given it to her. And POA is not sufficient to place someone in a care center against their wishes. So there had to be something else going on.

I suspect there is more to the story than what appears here -- and perhaps more than you are aware of, too.

Who is your sister's doctor? Find out what forms his office requires in order for the doctor to talk to you (some kind of hippa waiver form, usually), get your sister to sign it, make an appointment, and have a discussion with the doctor about your sister. Does she have dementia? How severe? Does she really need to be in a memory care unit, in his/her opinion?

Also have a discussion with your niece -- a calm, non-accusatory discussion for you to hear her side of the story. Why did she place her mother in a care center?

You are very kind and loving to be so concerned about your sister. Please talk to her doctor and her daughter. If you then feel that she should not be in a memory unit of a care center, come back and post again, for advice on how to remedy this problem. I just don't think we can enough details yet to give advice.

And, by the way, nearly all "memory care" units are "locked," because with some types of dementia it is very common for the patient to wander, to get lost, to forget where they live or even what their name is when found by someone. So the locking is for their protection. I don't see any reason why she couldn't still have dinner with her friends or other supervised outings. Have you asked the center staff about taking her out to lunch?

Hey vikki - don't you just love when people come back and post updates? And SOOOO wish more folks would??

Just in case "frustrated" is still reading, I would ask her to read my post above to "surprise" about my aunt with alcohol dementia. At the time I brought her to Southern California from northern, I had to locate her in a nursing home because I was already helping my mom take care of my dad who had full blown Alzheimers.

The MD at the neuropsych center had to make her diagnosis so that she was appropriate for a locked memory care facility. Nobody is put in any long term care, especially a locked facility, without cause.

And of course, based on the recommendations of the doctor, he advised not telling her where I was taking her, he even advised getting a bottle of vodka, pouring it out, filling it with water, and having some orange juice, and if she started asking for or demanding a drink (she wasn't fully psycologically detoxed at that point), I should get out the "vodka" and orange juice and pour her a screwdriver in front of her rather than argue with her about NOT drinking. He was RIGHT! Because she had some urinary problems at the time, we stopped two overnights at motels. And evening with her was time for cocktails! Was it EVER!! I was so glad the doctor prepared me. She never realized she wasn't drinking alcohol. When we arrived at the nursing home and went in, she caught on pretty quickly but it was too late. She had a metal adjustable medical cane and was swinging it in the air threatening to hit anyone who came near her. We backed off until she calmed down then we distracted her and took the cane away from her.

Of course it was against her will to be there. It's most likely ALWAYS going to be against their will. After she calmed down and later with the buspar, I was able to take her out for meals and movies which she loved. After my dad died and my mom had some very needed and put off orthopedic surgeries, and after my aunt was 4 years in the nursing home, I was able to bring her home to live with me for the last 2-1/2 years of her life. Totally changed my life but certainly improved the quality of hers.

Yeah, sure do.

I gave her a hug and a message - at least if she checks her e-mail she'll notice we still care even if we didn't just totally agree with her the way she probably expected. :-)

It sounds like she shouldn't be using the phone without supervision. Is there a way to ask them to limit her phone usage? Or to have someone with her when she makes phone calls to make sure she's not calling others to report she's been kidnapped?

It has to be unbelievably hard for you to have a mom who is still able to make a coherent case to others that she's being held against her will when the reality is very different. It sounds like you're doing what you can given the circumstances of your mom's condition. The only other thing I'd do would be to let friends and family know what's going on, in case they get a call from mom.

They would do better to have the phone somewhere near staff members who could intervene if the caller gets out of reality. When you're dealing with residents with dementia and paranoia, they could be calling 911 or anyone to report any kind of delusion. I admire their openness to allowing residents to call, but that has to be balanced with the knowledge of the residents' mental condition. Letting her hometown residents know what's going on is a good one. Hopefully they'll spread the news to her other friends.

surprise - your mom sounds like my aunt who had a stable form of alcohol dementia, which is to say, once I removed her from the alcohol, the brain damage she had attained, she kept, but she didn't deteriorate further until 6-1/2 years later when she had three strokes.

She fooled my mother and me for at least 3 years from our long distance phone calls because she spoke coherently. She compensated and covered up well and it wasn't until she fell and landed in the hospital that the paramedics reported and l (her medical and financial POA) was informed of the condition of her home and her pets. The details were grizzly and others have discovered the same type of circumstances, so no need to repeat it here, but suffice it to say she was living in squalor unknown to us until that time.

Fortunately for me, there was a two month in residence neuropsychiatric evaluation program up in the Bay Area where she lived that she was eligible for. Unlike the family members of any other residents there, and due to my acquaintance with things medical, l was there everyday with her and the other folks (who ranged from seizure head trauma to self mutilators to many forms of dementia). Because they saw me there everyday, I eventually formed a relationship with the neuropsychiatric MD, the psychiatric RN and the psychiatric social worker. The other patients there came to think of me as one of the workers and, with permission of the staff, I did get to know many of them and assisted them as well. It was a very interesting time and I can't begin to tell you how much you learn by spending 12 to 14 hours a day in a locked environment such as that, especially when you don't have to, haha.

Anyway, "surprise", what I was going to ask you to ask the Dr about for your mom is medication called buspar. It is an anxiolytic (for anxiety) and I personally think has more bang for your buck in calming the problems that produce the compulsive behavior to want to go home, get out, make phone calls, etc. Back in 1993 when my aunt was taking it, it was proprietary and very costly, over $300 a month. But I asked for it for my mom in 2012 and it's now a tier 1 generic, so very inexpensive. My mom had drug-induced dementia from the long term use of anti-cholinergic effects of the drug combinations she was taking before research has shown that was a problem. The buspar really helped her angst and ruminating and definitely improved the quality of her life. Before I requested the buspar, the doctor was considering an antidepressant or a tranquilizer, but was concerned and said she had to do research when I brought up the anticholinergic effect. The buspar doesn't mess with your brain chemistry the same way SSRIs or MAOIs do, so it's worth the question.

Vikki - if she checks, I just hope she can absorb the reality. It's doubley difficult when someone doesn't spend 24 /7 with the patient, and doesn't see or hear how the memory is shot and the discussions and questions are repetitious. Or how they often cover of confusion with anger and piss-offed-ness. Even when I see a smattering of it, denial is a peculiar critter and, as they say, I don't mean the river in Egypt ("De Nile" for those who have never heard that joke).

Hey, surprise, thanks so much for updating.

Look up confabulation and confabulate. I think that's what your mom is doing. Many dementia patients in the early stages when they still SOUND coherent will fabricate stories. They don't know they're doing it, they believe the stories themselves. If they say it often enough, it becomes ingrained as if it were totally true.

About the buspar - the doctor prescribed 30 milligrams per day, 10 milligrams 3 times per day. My mom was unsteady on her feet after her joints surgeries and she also had an ankle fusion as well, which means her ankle didn't flex. I had a pill splitter so I split one 10 milligram buspar and gave only that to her for about five or six days. When she showed no signs of dizziness, I gave her 5 milligrams twice a day. And etc. until we got to the 30 milligrams and never had any hint of dizziness. Thought you could talk that over with the doctor if your mom might need it in the future.

I'm glad she is better now back on the Zoloft. It's pitiful not to mention negligent and incompetent when a person's medication gets messed up for several days. Never any real excuse but it does happen, sadly, and everyone pays the price.

It seems awful, but it is probably easier to think you have been kidnapped rather than that you have a terminal disease that is inexorably taking your mind away from you in the process. Confabulation is just an honest brain trying to fill in the gaps to try to make some kind of sense of a confused and confusing situation!

I know this is an old post, but I think it is an important problem - how do outsiders recognize dementia? In the middle stages of dementia, the person is able to cover up their memory loss by making lots of notes to themselves, by accusing other people of doing things to cover for gaps in memory, etc.

It sounds like your sister is doing a good job of covering up her problems to you. With the medical history you have described, it sounds like she is in the appropriate place. The only way to be admitted is to have a doctor sign off for the memory care unit to prevent the kind of abuse that you are imagining.

In Jan, my mthr called her former teaching partner (who knew that mthr had doctor-diagnosed memory issues along with her cancer). Mthr told womans's husband who answered to come get her, that I had left her beside the interstate near the capitol and taken her car keys, etc. and that she had walked up to this building that let her use the phone. She was very convincing to the man, who immediately started packing up the car to drive to the capitol - of the wrong state. The wife got home to go with him, and stopped long enough to call me to give me a piece of her mind.

Once she stopped long enough to take a breath, I told the woman that mthr was in a locked memory care unit HERE two states away, and that mthr was making up a story to cover up why she was here, and why she did not know where she was. The teaching partner did not believe me until she called the home and talked to the director, who told her mthr was there and very agitated, but perfectly fine. She did not apologize to me, but did not hassle me further.

Currently, mthr is calling my house and leaving messages that she came to visit (director's name) and now director won't let her out of the building without me or my husband signing for her! She has no memory of being there for the last year, but she sounds so convincing in her messages that this is an immediate crisis and that she has been kidnapped. I hate to think who else she has called. BTW, she does not have a phone, but uses the office phone which is allowed by the home. If anyone has a strategy, I would love to hear it!