Hello,
long time looker of the forums here but first time poster.
My dad currently resides in a Nursing Home. He has FTD that has progressed rapidly over the last year. He falls almost every day but this nursing home has taken all measures possible to prevent these. He is currently a 1:1 patient because of this and also needs help daily with changing, bathroom, basic transfers to the bed etc.
during this whole time, my dads brother keeps promising to move him from this nursing home to an assisted living/memory care facility. We already had him in ASL where he was removed for aggressive behaviors after 4 days. He sat at the hospital for weeks until we could find a facility to keep him.
There have been a lot of attorneys involved now. We had to move him to guardianship after said brother came in and found an ASL and was actively in the process of moving him while my sister was his POA at the time.
said brother now calls our father on a daily basis telling him to not talk to us (the kids), that we are the reason he is where he is, and that we do not care about dad. This gets dad agitated at us, the facility, and has progressed to aggressive behaviors. We seem to calm him after talking with him each time but sometimes that can be 3-4x a day.
we currently have a court appointed guardian but the brother is contesting him. We have retained an attorney to take over guardianship now. It has been addressed with the NH, the courts, and doctors that dad cannot go to assisted living. But this isn’t stopping the brother from promising it.
my question is has anyone else dealt with this? What can we do to stop these calls/visits to dad? He thinks where his brother is taking him is ‘a condo.’ I’m assuming that’s what the brother says is ‘condo like’ and all dad hears is ‘condo.’ It’s been a nightmare of disease and year fighting this brother. We are completely broken by all of this. The disease is hard enough but adding this level of ignorance from the brother makes the stress harder. Our biggest fear is him going to ASL and then getting kicked out again and afraid of what placement could come next. Current nursing home has already stated they will not take him back. Already having a spot that dad knows the routine, the nurses, and has a nurse sit with him every day and night is a rare find.
Thank you all for any help and insight.
If brother calls the facility asking to talk to dad the POA can restrict those calls as well.
(It can be set up that the only time brother can visit is when there is someone there to monitor the visit so he can be escorted out if he causes trouble)
If push comes to shove you can ask for a restraining order and that would keep brother away legally.
I don't see why you still have attorneys when there is a State assigned guardian. Any contesting should have been done when there was a court hearing and a guardian assigned. Once a guardian is in place very hard to get rid of them. Not sure how your now going to get the State to turn over guardianship to a Lawyer. You do realize by doing this you have no hearsay in what decisions are made for Dad. You can ask but in the end the guardian is in control.
At this point, imho, this is an attorney question.
Your Dad's brother is causing much disruption and pain for him.
I believe your attorney would discuss with you now the efficacy of a "stay away" or "restraining" order by the courts. Whomever is currently POA or Guardian would be filing this before the courts.
You will only be able to control the situation when you/your family have guardianship. In my personal experience the court-assigned guardians are very reluctant to block family members, or they already have a heavy workload so can't/won't put effort into family issues like this.
Still, what evidence have you submitted to the guardian in order to move a solution forward and to block the brother or ask for chaperoned visits and calls?
Maybe the brother doesn't know what Sundowning is, and that your Dad wanting to "go home" is part of it and they are usually referring to a long-past home of their youth in their long-term memory where they felt safe and happy.
Is your Dad using a landline or mobile phone? If a mobile phone, I'd block the brother's number and lose the contact in your Dad's phone. Does your Dad really need a phone? I have a RAZ mobility phone for my Mom with moderate dementia. I control all her contacts in her phone so that no one unapproved can call her and she can't call anyone else. It's been great! Even if your brother showed up in person he would not be able to put his contact number back in your Dad's phone. Just a thought.
I'm so sorry for this distressing situation. It seems the brother either has mental illness or dementia himself.
I am assuming the POA is null due to requesting guardianship but I am unclear how that could be if your father was in a nursing home and the POA should have never been revolked.
I would also consult with an eldercare attorney to help draft a letter that will be sent to the brother to cease his activity of coercement that he is placing on your father that caused mental anguish. If he doesn't stop I would place the brother on a no visit list and possible a order of protection (if possible). Then the nursing home can have police involved with removal of brother. Hopefully it will not get to that point.
I would also suspect that the brother has some sort of dementia that he is either hiding well or his family is chosing to ignore that is creating this situation.
Good luck.
the brother is contesting guardianship and applying for it. All because he wants him moved. We’ve tried to explain to him that dad cannot be moved but he thinks we’re just evil children. But we’re the evil children Dad goes to after the brother gets him all fired up. But now, he’s completely against us with his daily calls from his brother. The calls amped up drastically once he saw we are going for guardianship. Dad doesn’t have a problem until the brother comes in and just gets nasty with him to get what he wants. I can’t help assume that he wants to take over guardianship so he can pay himself back for attorney fees and such.
I think the current guardian has his back against the wall since he’s being contested. We’ve asked him to try to stop things but it doesn’t happen. Our goal is to take over and remove the brother from contact if need be. We asked the nursing home to restrict him but they can’t unless the guardian does it.