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My mother is 89 years old. She can no longer take care of herself. She is blind in one eye and can't see very well with the other. My brother and I and a friend spends hours a day ensuring that she gets at least one nutritional meal a day and make sure that she has food for other meals. We occasionally find her on the floor. My brother and I both work full time jobs and it's very hard to go over and take care of her. She won't let us help bathe her. She won't let anybody else in her house to help her. I'm afraid that if she won't let us help her that her hygiene will be impacted. She has a very good appetite when we are there. We just cannot help her the amount of hours that are needed. If we were able to get support, how do we pay the people that come in? I heard it's very expensive. She refuses to go to a facility also.

Your mother will now need to have APS called to do a wellness check on her. If they find that she seems without capacity to make her own decisions they can enter her into the hospital system for assessment. If that happens you or your brother must decide if she requires someone to manage for her due to an inability to do her own care or due to lack of competency, if you would like to assume temporary guardianship of her. I will warn you that acting as guardian for an uncooperative senior with or without dementia is something I would never agree to do.

If your mother will not go into care, and if APS says she has a right to her own decisions regarding this I would tell her you will not be helping her any more. I would give her the phone number to ambulance to admit herself if she is unable to act for herself and I would agree to install a safety system to assess daily for falls. But I would do nothing else until she recognizes she cannot act on her own, and you will not help.

I am sorry to seem so brutal, but as long as you do everything she will not change her mind. You may decide to leave her be. At that point you will get the call from coroner or ambulance company of hospital ER and you can have Social Workers act for her and in her behalf. There are many seniors across the country without children. You will have to let your Mom know if she isn't cooperative with safe placement, she will be in their same position.

At some point in life, our unrealistic choices are no longer our own choice; and if they ARE, they may kill us. Some would prefer to leave the house feet first than have another year or two in a nursing home. I am not certain but that I don't agree with that thinking myself.
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Reply to AlvaDeer
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IMO , When an elder refuses hired help in the home , they go to assisted living , period .
Sell her house and use that money to pay for it .
Do not use your own money to pay for a care aide at home either.
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Reply to waytomisery
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She thinks she’s doing fine because she’s still living alone in her home. Although you, the friend, and your brother have loving intentions, you actually aren’t helping! You’re propping up the facade that she is capable of living how she is. Why would she consider leaving if you’re doing it all for her?

I’m sure she doesn’t want to move into assisted living, but she can’t call the shots anymore. She is not able to care for herself and not able to make good decisions anymore.
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Reply to LoopyLoo
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My mom isn't the type to want a stranger in her home either. In 2023, Mom was 87 yo, completely blind in 1 eye, and low vision in the other. Stage 3-4 dementia.
We introduced a personal care aide in stages.
Step 1. 3 days a week, 1/2 day mornings. The first day, I stayed the entire session. The 2nd day, I left after 2 hours. The 3rd day I didn't come at all. 6 weeks after we started this arrangement, Mom fainted at the breakfast table. THANK GOD the aide was there.
We are now up to 7 days a week 1/2 mornings. (Mom is now legally blind, stage 5 dementia). Mom has 3 regularly scheduled aides to help her. They take good care of them, and she is unfailingly polite to them, and overall, much more cooperative (on a regular basis) than with us, her adult children!. At first the personal care aide was paid for out of a senior program funded by our city.
This year I was finally able to get her qualified for Medicaid, which allow us to go from 5 days a week to 7 days a week.
I am currently working to get 20 more additional hours per week so that Mon-Fri Mom will have care 8:30-4:30pm, and 1/2 days on the weekends.
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Reply to Sechat
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She doesn’t get a choice. It’s facility time.
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Reply to southernwave
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Who has POA for mom? That person can make decisions for mom now that she's no longer able to. If nobody has POA, next time you find her on the floor, call 911 and have her taken to the hospital for a psych evaluation. She's likely suffering from dementia and needs to be tested and then placed directly from the hospital.

If you can hire aides to come in to help mom, she'd pay them from her funds directly. If she's low income, apply for Medicaid on her behalf.

Mom should obviously not be living alone anymore. You can also call APS to report a vulnerable and mostly blind senior living alone who's prone to falls. They can evaluate the situation and place her as well.

Best of luck to you.
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Reply to lealonnie1
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