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For some reason unknown to me, Mother has hated most of the caregivers I have found to work Friday and Saturday nights and Saturday and Sunday mornings and every time they make a mistake, she gets mean and uncooperative with them and bugs me to get rid of them. The care giver she likes best talked to her and now she doesn't want any on Friday or Saturday. We lost my dad last year and my mom is denying he's dead--thinking he's left her for a singing career. She's 80 years old.

I'm willing to stay with her on Saturday and Sunday during the day but not at night as I need my rest. So far she hasn't had any medical emergencies and she has a Phillips Lifeline monitoring system. But I'm scared that she may fall and that I will need to restore the caregivers, possibly causing problems down the road.

My question is: Do I have to fire caregivers if my mom demands that I do? Also, what are some strategies for finding the type of caregivers like those my mom likes best?

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Small things that others can forgive can upset older people, particularly those with dementia. My mother often asks me to take care of what's bothering her. She doesn't want to face the unpleasant task of doing it herself. What works for my mother is to tell her to speak to the person about it herself. It is surprising how unimportant things become when she knows I am not going to deal with it for her. My mother doesn't want to be seen as the bad guy. I don't know if that would work with your mother, historygradtn, but it might be worth a try.
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No don't hire more caregivers and don't stay overnight. Get her some anxiety meds and when she is feeling more cooperative, get her into Assisted Living. The best advice I ever got was to show her AL facilities and to NOT stay with her, forcing her to admit she needed to go to AL. Once we got her there for a one month trial, she loved it.
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It is good to give people with dementia as much of what makes them happy as ***reasonably*** possible. But they can't totally be in charge, because part of the disease is that reasoning is very impaired. Behaviors that make no sense have to be accommodated or worked around if they can't be changed. Maybe a catch phrase like "they're not perfect but they're the best we chickens can get" repeated like a mantra would work. After all, a couple of gals left behind for some guy's singing career can't be too picky, and she may just have to put up with the caregiver 'til that would be music star comes back home.

I'm assuming you already have POA and its in force, so you are the hiring and firing authority not Mom, so yeah, figuring out the right thing and then getting it done is all on you... good luck with that!
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