Is it healthy for my 92 year old mother to live alone with a severe short-term memory deficit?

Thank you everyone for your input. The difficulty lies in that I have made my opinion clear that Mom should be in a more stimulating environment like assisted living but my brother disagrees as he thinks this arrangement is going fine. And he does it because he cares, apparently believing that remaining in her own place is best.
I could try and push it but I’m not interested in creating a family rift. Historically he and his family have been the closest to her over the years.

Nope, it's not safe for a 92 y/o woman with severe memory loss to live alone. Who knows what she can do by mistake one day without realizing it's dangerous? She can try to clean something & mix chemicals together creating a toxic cocktail. She can try to cook & forget to turn off the stove. There are just 1 million things that could go wrong, including that she can fall and wind up laying there on the floor until someone comes by and finds her.

Assisted Living/Memory Care can help her by providing 3 hot meals a day and snacks, socialization, activities.........help with showers, and about 1000 other things that she'll need as her memory continues to evaporate. Don't wait until it's an emergency before you place her out of harm's way. Most people don't even understand dementia and all the facets of it......so read all about it and then make your decision accordingly. "Psychosocial" benefits are only 1 of many, many benefits to living with caregivers who work around the clock.

My mother turned 94 yesterday & I cannot believe how far downhill she's gone in the past 6 months ALONE. It's staggering what she can no longer do on her own, including using the TV and the phone lots of times! If she didn't have caregivers to help her, I shudder to think how she'd be able to function at all with moderate dementia at play.

Good luck.

I agree with Worried. Safety is the issue here.

Socialization is very important to maintaining cognitive health. My mother never wanted to go out or see anyone, and my dad didn't fight her on it, but once I placed her in a memory care facility, it definitely helped her to interact with different people in different ways.

Your mom sounds terribly lonely, and while she's happy-ish in her familiar surroundings, you need to make some decisions about her living situation with the knowledge that she isn't going to be getting better in her current set-up.

Ditto to what Worried responded. My MIL wasn't remembering to eat. Over the phone I'd ask her very specific questions about what she ate, how much and when, and she always gave answers that I had no reason to doubt. Then when I went to her house to check more closely I found rotting food in her fridge, moldy fruit in the basket, no dirty dishes, no food packaging in her garbage. Once out in public with us she nearly fainted and we finally realized that she *thought* she ate but really hadn't. The isolation thing is huge. Not sure if your mom would still be able to be in AL (as long as she doesn't wander) but this is a discussion with the admin of a facility.

I think you should be asking if it’s safe for her to live alone at this point. When she is alone, is she capable of handling an emergency? Can she get out of there is a fire? Will she think to call 911? If someone tries to break in, will she call 911? How likely is it that she will wander outside and forget her way home?

As far as it being healthy, I think that’s a matter of opinion. Some will say if family comes by every day then she’s fine. But to me it sounds like she’s pretty isolated and is merely existing at this point instead of living. I’m leaning toward this being an unsafe and unhealthy environment but I don’t know it’s correct to say that AL would be healthier, because of COVID. It would be better because she would be amongst other adults & have daily activities to participate in