What are the advantages and disadvantages of having social services take over?

This is a heartbreaking situation for you and for your mom. I'm so sorry you're going through this. As you've discovered, you can't reason with dementia.

A couple of thoughts....
1. Return her to her place and ask the Area Agency on Aging for a "needs assessment". Sometimes elders will listen to outsiders.

2. Make an appointment with a geriatric psychiatrist. Take her to lunch and then stop by the doctor for "your" appointment.

3. Wait until she falls, gets ill and have her transported to the ER. If she's admitted, discharge can help you find placement. Refuse to take her home.

This is not easy. But you need to keep your sense of self preservation, or she could outlive you.

obrok, sit down with a lawyer for one hour and go over the guardianship process. It need not be bitter and protracted, as long as all siblings agree who the guardian should be. The recommendation for placement is decided by the Judge; A court evaluator interviews mom at home.
In our case, all 3 children agreed who should be guardian. The guardian had a clean background check, good credit and lived in the same place for 30 years.
Mom was obviously confused; the court evaluator recommended she did not appear at the hearing, that she was unable to participate in the proceeding.
It was all over at the very first hearing. Cost $3000 in NY

So, if the APS sw says " I can make that happen" I'd welcome her with open arms! She can't mandate that you give up your lives to care for dad, but she can mandate that social services makes it possible by providing appropriate inhome care, apparently.

I think that sometimes the difficulty of getting guardianship over an incompetent family member is overestimated. People do it all the time. Legal fees vary, but, I would at least invest in the costs of a consultation with an Elder Law attorney who is experienced in litigation of these type of cases. He can tell you what kind of evidence is required to prevail in court, as well as the process and generally, what you can expect and the costs. If you prevail in court, in many jurisdictions, you may get your legal fees reimbursed to you, from the Ward, assuming they have the funds and can afford it.

Even if you don't want to become her Guardian, you can still petition the court and ask that they appoint someone else to be the Guardian. There are professionals who do it and they could award Guardianship to the County or some other person.

You can just report to APS, but, you never know who will get the case. Are they experienced, are they trained to recognize dementia and mental health issues, etc. Will they just make sure she' she has heat and food in the house and close the case? There is no guarantee that an objective person is going to really evaluate the matter. If it's bad enough, I suppose even a novice would see she needs help and is at risk in her current situation.

I agree with Barb: call the Social Worker. You will either be calling her bluff, or she will be able to use her professional network and her experience to source adequate at-home support for your father. Either way, you and your wife are off the hook.

We have called an APS social worker twice. Once when my FIL wouldn't give us his car keys after he lost his license (she was helpful then) and again when we were afraid to leave him alone. She came in and talked to him and then told us "He wants to stay in his house until he dies so you need to make that happen. If you won't do that, I've told him to call me and I'll make it happen ". We have both POA and Medical POA because he's been ruled incapacitated. But we can't make him go to an assisted living unless he agrees. I wish we would not have called APS because she insists we keep him in his home when we believe it is not safe!

The advantage of social services taking over is that it takes the burden off of the family.

The disadvantage of the social services taking over is that if your loved one is appointed a court appointed guardian, the guardian can become a monster as I saw with my foster dad when I was no longer allowed to visit him after having to report abuse I witnessed against another patient in the nursing home in the wing dad was living in. There were abusive nurses in that wing and I should've known something was coming but I didn't. Live and learn! I'm not one of those kinds of people to not say something when I see abuse since I survived abuse myself. I sure don't want no one else going through what I had to go through and I will definitely report it

I would seek a legal opinion from an attorney who handles these type of matters in your jurisdiction. Ask about the review process. Most jurisdictions have an oversight process. So, the court has oversight authority over social services as to how they handle the guardianship.

How does she not take any meds since she is an Alzheimer's patient?

My heart goes out to you, I think everyone on this forum understands in one way or another. I live in NY and I recently went through an interaction with APS due to my mom's doctor calling in a report. That's a whole other story :) It's interesting because the APS really doesn't have any authority. If they come in and the individual is alone and there is no family and the individual is obviously not capable of living alone, then they (the state) seek guardianship and whatever happens, happens. Not a good case scenario. Most of the APS employees are overworked. On a good note, I did find the case worker to be sympathetic and she did give me some information on several different things I was looking into. Even though her information didn't directly help me, it did get me moving in the right direction.
I would look into a free evaluation with an elder care attorney just to gather the information on guardianship. It may be more doable than you think. I didn't see where you stated if there were other siblings. You said you were not POA or anything, so who is?
I deal with two siblings who are joint POA - not a good situation to be in either since nobody communicates! My younger sister is the primary on the health care proxy-which is even worse because she does not communicate at all. She never comes to see mom. It just is what it is. I have 4 siblings, only one helps for about 6 hours on Sundays. That is the extent of the help.
However, the best move I made was hire a kick butt care manager. Holy cow. She has helped me get community medicaid for mom, in record time I might add, which will allow me to keep mom home with me and they will pay for the aides. I am waiting for the assessment to see how many hours they will give for in home care and then I get to choose the aides that come into my home and they pay for it. It is quite the process and the county isn't overly helpful so you really need a good care manager to fight for the benefits. I don't know your mom's financial situation but this is an avenue. Again, I don't know if you want to keep her home with you or place her in a facility, but a care manager is an extremely helpful resource. They know how the system works. Hang in there, you can get thru this. Just keep moving forward, one step at a time. Take care of yourself.