My MIL (82) lives alone, gets meals delivered, is depressed and isolated, not ready to consider assisted living. Ideas?

Sadly, this sounds like my mother. She wouldn't move, wouldn't try things like the senior center, was kind of going downhill because of it. There was nothing I could do to make her do it, either. Now that she's finally gone downhill enough to come live with me, she's really pretty happy. She thought she could last it out and end up dying in her own home. But, now that that plan hasn't worked, she is really pretty happy. I'm increasing the things she's doing, incrementally and she's doing more things, too. But she wouldn't be active or doing anything if she still lived at home.

I've been doing some stitching for charity and thought maybe I could get her interested in that. I thought it would make her feel useful. When she was alone in her own home, she just couldn't feel motivated to do it. She didn't see the point and wouldn't do it. Now that she's with my husband and me, she started doing charity stitching.

I think part of it is watching my husband and I constantly busy, she sees how sedentary she's become, where she didn't realize it, before. I think that she just felt kind of like "what's the point" for anything, before, where she now is part of our little community -- the three of us staying busy and being useful.

So, if your MIL is like my Mom, I think you've got a hard road ahead. I'd describe my Mom as being in the "blah" zone and maybe that's where your MIL is at -- where nothing matters and nothing is worth making an effort for.

I always felt if I could come up with just one thing that was regular that would get her out of the house that I could introduce other things. For one example, I tried to convince her to go to knitting lessons and make me a sweater. She didn't understand the purpose, and I was honest -- I said it would be good for her to get out and that I'd treasure a sweater made by-hand by my own dear mother. As with anything else, she thought about it and that's as far as I could ever get her. I wonder if I had scheduled and paid-for a taxi to pick her up if she would have done it? Not sure, but it occurs to me, now, that that would have been one more thing to try.

You said "...not ready to consider assisted living." Is that her that is not ready to consider assisted living? or is it you that is not ready to consider assisted living?
My brother's mother-in-law lives in independent living and it is working out great for her and the whole family. Also, how would your mother feel about Adult Day Care? A friend of mine took her father to ADC while she was at work and it was a great experience.

Depression is internal, lethargy and boredom are symptoms. Somebody can still be very much depressed while sitting in the middle of a party surrounded by friends who are having a good time.

Curing the symptom won't cure the disease, so do not drive yourself crazy trying to entertain someone out of their disease. This will only result in temporary benefits.

Having said that, if you can arrange for something she enjoys it will at least get her out of bed. If you can find an activity mom enjoys do not judge it, my mom likes word search, she goes through a 300 page book every 2 weeks. She also enjoys getting her nails done. Doesn't sound exciting to me, but it is better than staring into space.

This is a big question for me also. Adult day care near my mom was full of really bad off people. My mom has really no friends or family. She does like visiting at my house too crabby. She tried to join church senior group but they said they were too full? She is on a waiting list what? I bought her a bunch of things to paint but she's too depressed or not motivated. We got her an iPad she loves to play candy crush. I guess if you aren't surrounded by family and friends when you age you are screwed. She won't even entertain the idea of independent living. If she would just go and look she might get happy. It's funny how some people turn like thus and some don't. My mother in law same age us perfectly content. She is the same alone but she has a list 9 miles long of things to do

My MIL got into kind of a funk where she was depressed and stopped doing the things she liked. However, she has her husband and one son in the household and feels like she HAS to cook and clean for them. She resents doing it, hates doing it, but she feels it's her duty. In about the past year, she's actually started adding some outside and enjoyable activities to her schedule, all of a sudden. The only difference I see between her and others is that, even though she hated doing it, the chores she did for others kept her from becoming totally sedentary.

By contrast, my Mom lived alone and didn't have to do it for anyone else, so she just kind of stopped doing most of it.

By the way, my MIL's activities come from her local park district, so that's yet another place to look for activities.

I just had a thought, though -- one of the things that is helping me now get my mother doing things is that there are experts now helping me and talking to her. If you have a senior center or clinic where you can go get advice and possible get them to go talk to her, I don't know if that would help, but I think it's helping me out getting my Mom out.

I'm just wondering this -- if I had found someone who would have routinely invited my Mom to do something specific and that she'd enjoy, I wonder if that would have gotten her out of the house? I'm not sure but am thinking if someone had routinely stopped by for coffee and to invite her somewhere, she would have gotten to know them, maybe to like and trust them, maybe would have gotten in the car with them to go to some activity or another. The problem with this is that I'm getting this because I'm taking her to them -- I don't know if there would have been a way to get them to go to her. It's just an idea, though...

This is a little off-topic, but I think it might be related, but...

I was just helping my Mom fill-out a form for the clinic she's going to and it asked personal questions, such as what your hobbies and interests are, what are your greatest achievements, etc...

When anyone asks my mom these questions, she says there aren't any. For "occupation" she wanted me to put "couchsitter" because she said, "Well, that's what I do all day is sit on the couch and do nothing." Her initial answers indicated that everything of any interest is in her past and not worth mentioning.

Experts at the clinics know how to drag these things out of her. I was able to do the same by going off the form I had to fill out for her and by suggesting things to her. Here's a little of our conversation and I'm including this because I wonder if seeing these answers (not verbatim, but close) would help you figure out ways to get your MIL to do anything differently.

Me: The form asks for your hobbies and interests.
Mom: I don't have any.
Me: I thought you liked to read?
Mom: Oh, well, sure. That's true. I DO like to read. You can put that down.
Me: Anything else?
Mom: No, I'm not interested in anything.
Me: You've been doing some nice-looking embroidery. Don't you want me to include that?
Mom: That counts?! That's silly. I've been doing that my whole life. They don't want to hear about that. No-one does embroidery any more. No-one wants to know about that.
Me: Well, you might be right, I don't know, but it's an interest. Can I include it?
Mom: Sure, why not. It's a waste of your good ink, but fine.
Me: How about music? You like music.
Mom: But I don't play an instrument. Don't put that down.
Me: I wasn't going to say you played an instrument, but it's just asking for your interests and you have an interest in music. I don't have to write it down if you really don't want me to, but I think it counts since it's one of your interests.
Mom: Fine, but I'm tired of this. I'm taking a break. All these questions -- it's so complicated!!!

Anyway, you get the idea. Also, I have to learn when to stop pestering her. Forms can't be filled-out in one sitting, usually, and I just have to plan for that. :-)

Don't let her be the boss make her
Get up out of bed. Sometimes you have to use tough love.

geo123 - your mother is a sit-down comedien! She could go on the road with those one liners! She reminds me of Maggie Smith on Downton Abbey who plays the grandmother with the one liners - just enough to make a great point.

Mannose is good stuff, and there is a fair amount of it in cranberries, pineapples, apples and currants and a little in peaches and some other fruits too. Regarding statins and amlodipine, they may be statistically great for reducing risks in the population, but they certainly don't agree with everybody and tolerance may decrease with age. I can't take statins due to cognitive side effects, and my mom had several risk factors for and actually got rhabdomyolysis and I had to make sure she stayed off them too. And she got fluid overload on pioglitazone that I was hoping would be a breakthrough for her (instead of just taking insulin and being ravenously hungry all day with lousy glucose control)...phooey. She did better on Januvia. Just realize you should talk it over with your doctor who hopefully is not some nut who does not believe in side effects, and that not everyone gets every side effect possible on every drug, for some folks, those drugs can be excellent.

EvaLynnPearl wrote "I wish Medicare and our Government saw things this same way but they don't. In most cases Medicare will only help an elderly person if they only own $2K to their name."
I hope you will remember, money from the "Government" is everyone's money...you, your neighbors', your children's & grandchildren's.
There is always going to be a requirement to have individuals spend their own money, to take care of, their own self. Yes it is good to have saved money up for old age, and then, to spend it on your needs.
For the unfortunate ones who exhaust their savings, then the rest of us can step in, thru "government", to pay for their needs.
I only wish they taught kids in high school to start saving 10-15% per year after college towards their old age needs.
ALL of us needs to be more Responsible! And quit asking for handouts. If it means your kids will not inherit anything, that is fine.