Dad is 88 and has always been extremely affectionate with my 84 yr old mom. Married for 65 years. Recently he has been severely overmedicating her and has become cold and unloving. He is out to prove that he is still competent and our caregiver has found a "stash" of mom's meds hidden in the house ( I live 700 miles away) He insists on continuing to give her meds regardless of the fact that the caregiver does this daily ( she has CHF and dementia) and trys to "beat" the caregiver to it. We just found out that too many meds were making her violently nauseated and we can't get thru to him that he needs to stop. He is agressive and verbally abusive to my mom based on caregiver reports. He still drives and is aggressive about that as well. He throws and breaks things when he is angry, uses inappropriate language and tried to force my mom to do his bidding.
I contacted his neurologist last week to have cognitive testing done at yesterdays appointment. I heard later from the GP stating that this was not done, in spite of a written request sent at the neurologists office request.
He is scaring me and I am afraid he will poison my mother to death.
If I was to put meds in combination lock box, he would beat it with a sledgehammer to get in. He tried to do something similar with a safe he has in the house that used to have guns, etc. Thank God those are with my nephews.
I am at a complete loss as to what to do. I have POA
Any suggestions are welcome.
Care at this stage ALWAYS starts with SAFETY. In your situation I’d get a large male “backup” into the house to support the caregiver, be a second set of eyes, furtively disable the car, and in general, take control.
I’d have GRAVE concerns about your mother AND your father. I think BOTH are vulnerable to a terrible outcome unless you move fast. Might your nephews have a large buddy or buddies who would do time in keeping things under control?
Next would be to try to stabilize your father, it could be burn out or he might have a UTI or some other infection (which often causes weird psychological effects in the elderly), whatever it is waiting isn't going to make anything better. It is going to be difficult to deal with any of this from afar, if possible boots on the ground will be better.