My parents are 87 yrs old with dementia living at home. I’m their daughter who lives across town, I go over to visit every other day. I organize their pill boxes weekly. Sometimes they forget to take their meds and I give them a hard time about it.
I discovered hidden in a cupboard wrapped in tissue, a few days worth of both parents meds. Of course I was puzzled and upset. Are they giving up? Tired of taking these meds? I have not approached them yet. I need advice on how to handle this difficult situation! Thanks. ACM. (Only sibling in town )😬.
With 2 taking meds and having dementia, without monitoring you can't tell if they take the meds, if they take the correct meds (their own), if they toss or hide them. It is time for some intervention.
Depending on their levels of dementia, they may need more help/observation than you realize. Can they afford AL? Can they eventually afford MC? If yes, start checking out any local places, and when narrowing down the choices, do put higher preference on a place where they can transition to MC in the same facility.
"A caregiver, or "companion" might help during the day if they do not need "hands on care" a companion can not give medications but they can remind, put the medication in front of them and watch that it is taken,"
Someone DOES need to observe the pills are actually taken. The timed locked dispensers are good, to a point. It does allow you to see if any days were missed, but it does NOT allow you to know if the pills were taken out and tossed or hidden, nor does it ensure that each parent took their OWN meds! Either OP needs to go daily, not every other day, to watch the pills being taken OR OP needs to hire an aide to do the observing. If the second option is chosen, do get the locked dispensers, clearly marked as to which one is for each parent and set the timer for when the aide will be present. There can be multiple settings for each day, if some are taken morning and some at night. DO understand that the aide CANNOT handle the medications - the suggestion above was to have the medication placed in front of them. Aides cannot handle or dispense meds, but they CAN point out that they were not taken and coax the person into taking them... Now that I have written all that, I did point out to another comment that there is no way unless someone is there that you can be sure one person isn't taking the other person's meds. If the timers go off and the pills are taken out before anyone is there to observe/oversee, you will have no way of knowing if the pills taken, if they were taken by the right person or if they were tossed or hidden. Quizzing them won't help. The dispenser and oversight is the only way, unless one places them in AL.
and
"I would not quiz them about hiding or hoarding the medications as they probably have no recollection that it was done."
No quiz, query, accusations, arguments. You have to be the "adult" here and treat this just like kids taking medicine - you can't rely on kids knowing/doing the right thing, or being totally honest sometimes!
"I tried giving him a reminder each day and that didn't work as once we hung up the phone he would just do the same thing."
Unless they are on camera, there is no way this method will work, as jkm999 realized! Our mother would call me every day or every other to request a ride to an upcoming appointment (she lived by the calendar at that time.) I got tired of the calls, so asked her to get a pen/pencil and write down next to the appt that I would be coming to take her. Yup. No, not Yup mom, DO it while I am on the phone. Yup. No, NOW!!! I want to HEAR you writing it down!!!
Going forward, I made sure each appointment was marked with who would be taking her (usually, 99.999% of the time, me.)
However reminders, either on the phone or on paper/calendars don't work for taking medications (or many other issues!)
"What is with the Wrapping of things in tissue paper and then hiding them?"
Yeah, what is with that!?!??! Our mother does it ALL the time. I have referred to her as the "Tissue Monster!" She goes through so many tissues and napkins. She will even snatch paper napkins away if staff is clearing the tables after meals!
When clearing out her condo, I found so many tissues, in drawers, under the pillows, under the bed, in pockets - you'd think there was a run on tissue and she needed to have some for any occasion! It might be left over from depression era, but well before dementia she would stash extra napkins from fast food places and carry tissues all the time. With dementia, it seems even worse.
In MC, this proved to be very expensive - they had ruined her hearing aid when it went through the laundry with her sheets/bedding. A new pair was purchased (she only used one, so I kept one as a spare - we only get reimbursement of some of the cost every three years!) Sure enough, about 2 months later, the new one was MIA. I WAS angry - with the first one she was still more or less able to keep track of it, but over time not so much. We didn't ask them to manage it (at some point I did request they change the battery every 2 weeks, per provider suggestion, but despite giving them batteries, nope.) With the new one, it is chargeable, so I DID ask them to keep the charger and "manage" it. She kept taking it out, so the suspicion is that she did this during a meal, wrapped it into tissue and that got tossed. They refused to help cover the $400 replacement cost, but now will take it away if she takes it out. At this point, at 96 with dementia and limited hearing anyway, it isn't likely I will purchase another for her. Perhaps cough up the $400 to have a spare - maybe. Maybe even $800 to have 2 spares.... Certainly cheaper than buying a new pair.
"Deep in a closet, I found a shoebox, and that shoebox was stuffed with every single missing med -- and I do mean stuffed!"
Oh how this brings back memories! When clearing out the condo, in the kitchen drawer I found TWO plastic bags, one large, one small, wrapped with elastic, stuffed FULL of pills! Every color in the rainbow!
No idea how long she collected all these, or what/who they were for (suspect many were from dad when he was still alive.) Perplexed as to why she would even WANT to save all those! We had already switched her to a timed locked dispenser, with daily aides to check she took the ones presented for the day. The remaining containers were locked up. She may have started these collections long ago, or may have started in the early stages, before I realized she had an issue, but the quantity and the types (not all were like the ones she takes) say this collection was done some time ago.
Again, save them for what purpose? It wasn't like anyone could tell what or who they were for, there were so many different kinds! I even later found some fentanyl patches in the washer/dryer closet that were for dad (passed in 2008, certainly long expired at that point!)
"After filling the box, I also locked up the rest of the pill bottles to ensure they were safe and not messed with. "
IF any containers are left in the home with these (or other) parents, they NEED to be locked up. Taking too many is just as bad or worse than missing doses!
I also locked up the containers. Her plan does the 90 day supply and I didn't want her to have ANY access to them. But I did want them at her condo, so that in case I couldn't get there to do the locked dispenser refill, YB could. It was under the spare BR bed, and if she happened to see me go there to open it, she would chastise me and say that was YB's stuff!!! She had no clue what was in the box.