Elderly mother with dementia and is immobile, uses cruel statements to get her way.

Stop assisting your mother. Allow natural consequences to occur.

The facility will insist on either more hired help or for them to leave for AL. Then the facility can be the bad guy. "Sorry mom, that's out of my hands."

Do you hold Power of Attorney for your parents?

Have you learned how to say "no" to your mother and held firm? That's the skill you need to learn.

You are not required to do "hands on care" for them, even if you hold POA.

First of all, you are not keeping them independent. No one is. If people have to have others doing for them, they are not independent.

It is very kind of you to want to help your parents. You're not doing either of them a favor tolerating your mother's verbal abuse and obeying her nonsense.

She is not calling the shots here anymore and has to learn to accept help from hired caregivers. She will not if you continue to humor her and do everything for her.

I was an in-home caregiver for 25 years and have had many clients like your mother. So, I'm going to tell you plainly.
Take a step back. Tell the caregivers that your mother is not making the decisions anymore and cannot fire them. You decide that. Also, give them permission to tell her this when she tries to.

Come on a day when one of the caregivers is there and take your father to lunch. Have a long talk with him about your mother's needs. It can't be easy for him living with someone like this. Let him know that you're taking a big step back. He has to as well. When the caregivers come, he should go out somewhere. Your mother has to learn to let her caregivers do their job which is to help her. She will learn to if she is left alone with them.

When she gets verbally abusive to you or your father, shut her down straight away without delay. Instruct the caregivers that they may also if she gets verbally abusive with them too. Shutting her down does not mean matching her verbal abuse with more. She will have to adapt or she will have to be placed and it won't be in AL.

I was a supervisor in a very nice AL facility. Her behavior will not be tolerated for very long. She'll be sent to memory care of a nursing home.

I don't know how advanced your mother's dementia is. I hope she is still able to reason and understand when she's being told something.

So please tell her this. I've said it to needy elders and their families for 25 years.

'Nothing gets a senior a one-way ticket to a nursing home faster than being stubborn'.

Hopefully your mother's stubbornness and abusive behavior won't lead both of your parents straight to the nursing home. If it does, that's not on you.
You're doing your best for them.

She is not calling the shots anymore. Remember that.

I think in some ways your "being there" and being constantly "on call" to your Mom and Dad is enabling them to avoid the inevitability of their need for more care.
They are using YOU instead, and are not even so cooperative as to keep caregivers that are hired on board.

I am afraid you are going to have to have the hard sit-down talk with them, and that you are going to need have to be brutally honest, and going to have to withdraw yourself from this situation. You can "make up" some reason (your health, your duties elsewhere, your job,) or you can honestly tell them that your "help" is not helping them, but is rather enabling them to avoid the truth. That they need more support. Tell them that you are THEREFORE cutting the time you have available to them. That it is not open for argument or discussion. And write it out--the exact hours and days you can provide, and for what. Provide numbers for help and emergencies to them. And stick to your schedule.

Whether or not you act now, something WILL come to bring all of this to a head. And it WILL then be addressed likely with death or hospitalization. At least in the latter case you will have Social workers to call in on day one.

I am so sorry. I hope you have support for yourself, even a support group, even an ONLINE support group on FB. I wish you the best and hope you'll update us.

This is really simple...stop trying to handle her. They are in IL so just let the facility know they need more care but are resistant. Let them fail. This is the only way they will see they need more care. Stop riding in on your white horse to save the day.

Let the facility know what is going on. They aren’t always aware of what goes on in independent living apts . Ask the facility to be the bad guy and tell them they have to move to assisted living and not to mention you .

Your profile says Mom has Dementia and Dad suffers from Seizures from a tumor. Mom needs to be medicated for her meanness. They both need to be in an AL. Mom has no say because she is not competent to be able to make decisions. Its what she needs not what she wants at this point. And you have to stop helping them to be independent. Have them both evaluated and I am sure u will be told, they need AL.

Firstly, I know it's just a word, but think about the word *independant*.

"She and my father live in independent living". Beacause the word *independant* is on the ne doesn't make it so.

#1 ".. independent as possible for as long as possible.."
#2 ".. but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to help them stay independent".

As an outsider merely reading the bio, I would say;

Your Mother is *Dependant*.

#1 'as long as possible' may already be here
#2 What would happen if you stepped back?