How will we handle Mom's dementia-related anger when we sell her home to fund her assisted living apartment?

One minute she tells us and everyone within ear shot that she is giving the house to us, next minute she says she's called a realtor to sell her house... sad thing is, as dpoa effective, her house is already renter with possible option to buy. I must agree with 'sell but did not tell'. I find that if you simply gently agree with them during their moments' musing, whatever the crazy idea she has at the moment will pass and you won't have agitated, irritated or hurt her feelings. .. just softly tread and do your business without doling out details to her. I continually am amazed at her overestimation of her abilities and underestimation of her inabilities. It is troubling how much upheaval there is when she has a phone in her hand. ..also loved the one about the queen size bed. Seems that you and I are dealing with nearly the same issues - our loved ones are experiencing the most painful operation of all: having their wings clipped.
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This is such a common situation. My mother, now deceased, told me once of how she, at one time, had had to sell her father's car "behind his back." Then twenty-five years later, she and her husband ( my parents) found themselves in THEIR golden years, and then it fell to me to get Dad to stop driving, convince them they needed to move from their home to assisted living, etc. etc. The cycle continues with each generation. We all do the best we can at the time, guided by our love for our parents. I trust my children will treat me the same way when my time comes......

In dealing with individuals who have dementia or Alzheimer it is important to not lie to them because it damages the relationship and trust. In their fragile state they are scared and frightened and need validation of their emotions. They may understand logically they need to sell their home or they can not live independently but emotionally they can't deal. For their sake you need to forget the guilt and step back to figure out what they trying to express emotionally but can not due to the dementia or Alzheimer express it. Naomi Feil has written a book on Validation which I suggest to understand the the technique. Redirection is another method of assisting with individuals who have memory impairment. Communicating with your loved one changes when dementia and Alzheimer's attacks.

My mother-in-law and her husband lived in their house for 50 years. They raised three boys (I'm married to #3) and up until 2008 all was fairly well.
Then her husband suddenly got sick, 6 months later he's dead and the beginnings of her dementia at that time were thrown into full tilt. Her memory suffered first (short term is gone) and because of the macular degeneration, she couldn't take care of herself anymore. We found out that he had been covering for her for years with the memory decline and eye sight. At that time my sister-in-law started looking around for asst living places. We did not tell her, but we had money on two places to hold them open for mil. She and I knew it was only a matter of time, but m-i-l was determined to stay independent. BUT we had to dispense her pills, take her everywhere, I washed her hair, sis-in-law washed her feet, it was on going. Plus I felt terrible that she'd sit there day in and day out by herself with nothing to do but watch TV, so I started a regime of visits/trips/movies etc. When she fell (again) and this time broke her hip, we seized the moment and she never went home after rehab. What saved us being the 'bad guys' was that all the doctors at the NH that evaluated her, said she could no long live alone. Anyway, making a long story longer Nan, she has been there for 6 months at least now, and has NEVER stopped saying she wants to go home. But after us repeating that she can't go home again, maybe 10,000 times or so, she does remember THAT, it just doesn't make a difference. She wants to go HOME!! period. nothing can be done about how she feels, but it doesn't change the fact that she can't go home.

I second the suggestion to read up on Naomi Feil's communication techniques. I went to one of her seminars and her info was invaluable. Although it's harder, I have to say that it's better to be as honest as you can, but I certainly wouldn't judge someone who decided not to tell. My mom gets angry about her house being sold on a daily basis. Funny, she only asks my mentally retarded son about it, not me or my husband. That tells me that she knows the truth, but just wants to pick a fight. My son will now call out to me 'Mom, Grandma's asking about her house again' and she will get mad at him for 'tattling' on her and totter off to her room in a self-righteous huff. I usually praise my son for letting me know about her behavior, and tell him I'm sorry Grandma's so mean to him sometimes. He always replies 'She's just Grandma. We still love her.'. Out of the mouths of babes.

Mom has been in assisted living nearly 3 months now and we are packing up the house to sell it. Her facility is EXCELLENT. She has a 2 room apartment with her queen sized bed and most of her favorite furniture from her home. I have taken her back to her house a couple of times and the anger and aggression towards me has been awful so I will no longer take her back there.

This week I took her to her beach house about 2 hours away thinking she would have happy memories and enjoy a change of location. IT WAS HORRIBLE. She was angry, hostile, even threw things around. She was verbally abusive to me and my husband about "putting her away." We only stayed 24 hours rather than the 4 days we planned to stay. She did not even eat for the 24 hours!! Yet...she tells friends that it was HER decision to move to the ALF and she "loves" it.

Selling her car and her not being able to drive is even more contentious. I try being truthful but she gets so angry and aggressive at me when I do that. I know that being independent for 28 years after my father passed away makes the loss of that independence more difficult to bear.

I have been counseled to not even visit her for a couple of weeks now. I hope I can do that. I am more callused to her verbal abuse now after about 3 years of it; but it still hurts not to be able to make her happy.

Still dealing with selling the house and dreading the day I have to tell her it has been sold.

Thanks naheaton, it's always nice to know I'm not the only person dealing with this. Like you, I've been told by multiple doctors and case workers that Mom cannot live alone any longer.

I too am in the same position. My mother went to assisted living in Oct 08 and we have kept the house as rental income that is used toward the expense. She asks every conversation when she is going home. In the last couple of months her dementia has become overwhelming and she is verbally abusive to everyone. Currently she has been placed in a mental health facility in the hope that they can find the right combination of meds. In the midst of the screaming she still believes she would be better off in "her house". It's an awful disease!

Hi guys,

Wow - me too! My uncle wants to move back to his apartment of 42 years which he adores. He is an 88 year old bachelor and somehow out of the blue, after a heart attack and two strokes, I have become his health care proxy and power of attorney. He has been through extensive testing and his doctors recommend that he stay in assisted living. His remaining brothers and sisters agree and believe that letting him go back to his apartment (500 miles from all of us) is a death sentence. His landlord sent me a letter that says he can’t come back without medical clearance because they don’t want the other families in the building to be at risk. I called his medical team and they assure me that based on the cognitive testing that has been done - he should not go back. The two social workers that care for him agree. Everybody agrees that I am doing the right thing, against his wishes, but on his behalf. None-the-less I can’t help feeling that I am betraying him. I am taking a week’s vacation and am going to clean out his apartment and move his belongings into storage. I think I will take the “sell don’t tell” route. He changes the subject whenever I try to talk about it so I guess I can start doing the same thing. Even after four months of seeing example after example that prove he is incapable of independent living, I fear he will have a miraculous recovery and I will have ruined his life. GUILTY I AM.

My MIL was living from one sibling to another and yet believed she could still live alone. She finally became very ill with gall bladder and had to have it surgically removed. She was with her son in another state at the time. After the surgery, this son allowed her to go to home alone on the plane. When my daughter picked her at the airport to take her to her home, she was totally disoriented and unable to care for herself. My husband drove over to get her and some belongings and brought her to a lovely ILF here in town.
She was so angry she pinched my husband and called us and her other children sometimes 10 times a day and demanded to go home. She ranted and raved and cursed and threatened suicide. We did not give in. Was it pleasant? No, but we knew it was the only decision for her. She was 87 and her macular degeneration has left her nearly blind. We finally got her into a good geriatric specialist and her diagnosis was demntia. It was like living in Hades for about 3 months, but we knew that we had to exercise tough love. We still have to do many of the common things for her, take her shopping, do her laundry, but she is getting three nutritious meals a day and the most important, daily activities and ALL of her medications on time.
All of her children still work full time and lead active lives. Even when she would live with us, she complained of being alone and bored. Finally, after nearly 6 months, she is happy. Yes, it was tough but we did not give in and take her home. She still talks about moving back home-300+miles away, but we just change the subject. We tell her that because we love her and care about her, she cannot go back and live alone. She fianlly feels like the staff are nice and the people she lives with are nice. She thinks the place is a "dump", but she cannot really see.