If dad has dementia, and it sounds like this might be the case I have a few thoughts for you. 1) His wife..your stepmother, may quite possibly be overwhelmed. Believe it or not it is difficult to be a caregiver and a wife to someone with dementia. 2) If she says "he has to go" what exactly does that statement mean? Is she planning on placing him in Memory Care or Assisted Living or kicking him out of the house without a care as to where he ends up? (If she just wants him out of the house then your "problem" is solved if she plans on placing him in Memory Care of AL you can discuss with her placing him in GA where it is close to you but keep in mind she is still POA and no matter where he is she still gets to say in his care. 3) If you think you can care for him in your home you might be rethinking that when you get him home and actually have to start caring for him. And if we are dealing with dementia a move will probably cause a decline that he may or may not bounce back from. And I doubt you will have better luck getting him to shower or take pills.
If you HONESTLY think he is being neglected in some way or not cared for properly you can report the situation to APS and they will investigate. This will ruin any relationship with your step mother and possibly other family members. And she can make it VERY difficult for you to maintain contact or have any input.
If you HONESTLY think that she is not caring for him or he is neglected in any way you can contact an Attorney and file for Guardianship. This will be a tough battle and expensive and a waste of your dads money and yours as well. IF you happen to gain Guardianship it will be a fairly expensive process and is involved. You just don't get Guardianship and that is the end of it. There are court dates you will have to go to. Papers that have to be filed, monthly accounting of any expenses. Not an easy process.
I think you should help your step mother figure out how she can care for him, what kind of help can she use, If dad is a Veteran contact a local Veterans Assistance Commission and find out if he is eligible for any services or benefits. Contact the Area Agency on Aging and find out if there are local services. Find out if a Caregiver from an agency can come in a few times a week and help with a shower, help with laundry. And if Step mother can not care for him please realize that placing dad in Memory Care is sometimes the safest thing to do, it is not easy to make a decision like that but sometimes it can't be helped. *side note* and I will begin this by saying this is not all situations but...With dementia can come violence and if your dad has in any way threatened, hurt your step mother she needs to look out for her own safety and this is NOT something that you would probably discuss with other family members OR if you di there is a very good possibility that the response would be .. "Oh, my dad would never do that"... well your dad is no longer the dad you remember
I'm posting what's in your profile because I think it's helpful information:
"I have all my extended family living in Wisconsin. My father lives there with his wife. She has POA over dad. She is not doing a very good job. I would like to know all I can about challenging her POA and take my dad back to Ga with me. My other 4 sisters cannot take him. Someone needs to because dad's wife is negligent."
Sounds like your dad has dementia, or at the very least an undiagnosed UTI. SHe isn't being neglectful, she's being overwhelmed by trying to care for an uncooperative person while his family is doubting her motives and abilities. Very unhelpful without knowing all the facts on the ground.
What kind of neglect do you suspect? We need more details because it matters as to how you would approach this issue. If your dad is telling you stuff, please know that delusions are part of dementia. Maybe start by asking his wife what type of help she needs right now and then assisting her in solving immediate issues. Maybe you (or your sisters) need to go there for a few days and see for yourselves that it may be as bad as she says, you just can't see it since you're not living it every day.
Later-in-life blended families are often very fraught with complexities about who should make decisions for parents and when, and lots of suspicions and accusations. If his wife is the legit PoA and she has the document to prove it, then the legal burden will be all on you but you must have actual proof. Ask to see her PoA document (diplomatically) understanding that she is under no legal obligation to show it to you. If you see with your own eyes that she is not just overwhelmed but actually neglecting him willfully, then contact APS for their county. That's where it legally all starts. But it sounds like she just has her hands full and doesn't know how to handle it. WIth a 20-year age difference, she probably didn't think about what would happen to either of them once age-related decline starts to happen. Few people think about it. I have a cousin who married a guy 18 years younger than herself. She's 68 and he's 50. She was just diagnosed with ALZ and he newly diagnosed with COPD. He is way over his head trying to work full time and care for her at night. And her daughters are picking at him and critiquing and judging everything he does without having a full understanding of what it's like to be in that situation. It's grinding him down to a pulp.
If you take on a legal case against her be prepared to not be allowed to see your dad again for a while until things are sorted out through the courts. FYI guardianship is very expensive -- $10K + is the number often quoted on this forum. In your case you can definitely make a bad situation worse if you just go roaring in without knowing what you're doing. It is very probable that your step MIL is just overwhelmed by your dad's issues and care needs and maybe they don't have the funds to solve it. Ask her if your dad has ever had a cognitive or memory test and if so, what did he score? What was the diagnosis? Maybe she can't even get him in to be tested (which is a very common problem). Start by asking if you can be of assistance and work from there.
I learned a lot by watching Teepa Snow videos on YouTube. She's very knowledgable about what causes dementia, how is changes our LOs, and how to better engage with our LOs so that there can be more peace in the home. Your dad is 89. The likelihood that he has dementia is very high, so please have proper expectations as you move forward in working through this issue.
1) His wife..your stepmother, may quite possibly be overwhelmed. Believe it or not it is difficult to be a caregiver and a wife to someone with dementia.
2) If she says "he has to go" what exactly does that statement mean? Is she planning on placing him in Memory Care or Assisted Living or kicking him out of the house without a care as to where he ends up? (If she just wants him out of the house then your "problem" is solved if she plans on placing him in Memory Care of AL you can discuss with her placing him in GA where it is close to you but keep in mind she is still POA and no matter where he is she still gets to say in his care.
3) If you think you can care for him in your home you might be rethinking that when you get him home and actually have to start caring for him. And if we are dealing with dementia a move will probably cause a decline that he may or may not bounce back from.
And I doubt you will have better luck getting him to shower or take pills.
If you HONESTLY think he is being neglected in some way or not cared for properly you can report the situation to APS and they will investigate. This will ruin any relationship with your step mother and possibly other family members. And she can make it VERY difficult for you to maintain contact or have any input.
If you HONESTLY think that she is not caring for him or he is neglected in any way you can contact an Attorney and file for Guardianship. This will be a tough battle and expensive and a waste of your dads money and yours as well. IF you happen to gain Guardianship it will be a fairly expensive process and is involved. You just don't get Guardianship and that is the end of it. There are court dates you will have to go to. Papers that have to be filed, monthly accounting of any expenses. Not an easy process.
I think you should help your step mother figure out how she can care for him, what kind of help can she use,
If dad is a Veteran contact a local Veterans Assistance Commission and find out if he is eligible for any services or benefits.
Contact the Area Agency on Aging and find out if there are local services.
Find out if a Caregiver from an agency can come in a few times a week and help with a shower, help with laundry.
And if Step mother can not care for him please realize that placing dad in Memory Care is sometimes the safest thing to do, it is not easy to make a decision like that but sometimes it can't be helped.
*side note* and I will begin this by saying this is not all situations but...With dementia can come violence and if your dad has in any way threatened, hurt your step mother she needs to look out for her own safety and this is NOT something that you would probably discuss with other family members OR if you di there is a very good possibility that the response would be .. "Oh, my dad would never do that"... well your dad is no longer the dad you remember
"I have all my extended family living in Wisconsin. My father lives there with his wife. She has POA over dad. She is not doing a very good job. I would like to know all I can about challenging her POA and take my dad back to Ga with me. My other 4 sisters cannot take him. Someone needs to because dad's wife is negligent."
Sounds like your dad has dementia, or at the very least an undiagnosed UTI. SHe isn't being neglectful, she's being overwhelmed by trying to care for an uncooperative person while his family is doubting her motives and abilities. Very unhelpful without knowing all the facts on the ground.
What kind of neglect do you suspect? We need more details because it matters as to how you would approach this issue. If your dad is telling you stuff, please know that delusions are part of dementia. Maybe start by asking his wife what type of help she needs right now and then assisting her in solving immediate issues. Maybe you (or your sisters) need to go there for a few days and see for yourselves that it may be as bad as she says, you just can't see it since you're not living it every day.
Later-in-life blended families are often very fraught with complexities about who should make decisions for parents and when, and lots of suspicions and accusations. If his wife is the legit PoA and she has the document to prove it, then the legal burden will be all on you but you must have actual proof. Ask to see her PoA document (diplomatically) understanding that she is under no legal obligation to show it to you. If you see with your own eyes that she is not just overwhelmed but actually neglecting him willfully, then contact APS for their county. That's where it legally all starts. But it sounds like she just has her hands full and doesn't know how to handle it. WIth a 20-year age difference, she probably didn't think about what would happen to either of them once age-related decline starts to happen. Few people think about it. I have a cousin who married a guy 18 years younger than herself. She's 68 and he's 50. She was just diagnosed with ALZ and he newly diagnosed with COPD. He is way over his head trying to work full time and care for her at night. And her daughters are picking at him and critiquing and judging everything he does without having a full understanding of what it's like to be in that situation. It's grinding him down to a pulp.
If you take on a legal case against her be prepared to not be allowed to see your dad again for a while until things are sorted out through the courts. FYI guardianship is very expensive -- $10K + is the number often quoted on this forum. In your case you can definitely make a bad situation worse if you just go roaring in without knowing what you're doing. It is very probable that your step MIL is just overwhelmed by your dad's issues and care needs and maybe they don't have the funds to solve it. Ask her if your dad has ever had a cognitive or memory test and if so, what did he score? What was the diagnosis? Maybe she can't even get him in to be tested (which is a very common problem). Start by asking if you can be of assistance and work from there.
I learned a lot by watching Teepa Snow videos on YouTube. She's very knowledgable about what causes dementia, how is changes our LOs, and how to better engage with our LOs so that there can be more peace in the home. Your dad is 89. The likelihood that he has dementia is very high, so please have proper expectations as you move forward in working through this issue.
Are you contemplating moving him to a facility in Georgia or in Wisconsin?