How to get out of town family to understand what's going on....

tralphazer

My mom was officially diagnosed with ALZ in December, but she's been having symptoms for a couple of years now.  She moved to Indiana to be closer to us about 3 years ago.  My brother, who lives near where she used to live, shipped her off to us because he can't deal with her.  So we've been caring for her, a little to begin with, but she lived independently, but she started having cognition problems/falls over the summer and into fall.  She finally wound up in the hospital and it was decided that she would either come live with us or go to a nursing home.  She came home with us and has been here since October.  My mom has been getting increasingly paranoid and is accusing me of theft and keeping her locked up.  I've been managing her finances and she has been advised not to drive by MDs.  Now she's calling my brother, who is a hot head and thinks the world is black and white, and telling him I'm doing these awful things.  They're clearly paranoia, but he is taking her word for it and I'm just beside myself having to deal with her, now him.  What can I do or say to him to understand what's going?  I get nothing but rage from him because she's interrupting his work.  He wants to be left alone and not bothered with anything.  I told him that he hasn't seen anything yet and that the calls will get more and more frequent as this process continues.  He's like "shut this down, I don't want calls."  I'm sure there are some folks out here that are in the same boat. Any advice???

M1

Welcome to the forum, you've come to a good place.  Couple of thoughts:  Do you have power of attorney for your mom?  Because you're almost certainly going to need it, if nothing else to prevent conflicts with your brother about who makes decisions.  On a more practical level, you priobably need to limit her telephone access.   If she is using a cell phone, lose it or tell her it's in for repairs.  If she is using your landline, you may have to take it off the hook (I had to do that at certain points).  Thirdly, this kind of paranoia is pretty common.  You may need to talk to her docs abut medications that may help, including atypical antipsychotics such as Seroquel.  

Good luck, all of this is hard and I can only imagine that sibling conflict would make it worse.

Quilting brings calm

In addition to M1’s suggestion, since your brother doesn’t want to be bothered at work…

Delete his phone numbers from your moms contact list so she can’t easily call him.  Tell him to block her number and then he can call her at her convenience. 

Buy him the book The 36 Hour Day and send him this link: 

 https://www.alzconnected.org/uploadedFiles/understanding-the-dementia-experience.pdf

harshedbuzz

tralphazer-

You can make a person who doesn't want to understand understand. He's sending you clear signals that he has tapped out. I can appreciate that you want to clear your name and to be recognition for the hard work you are doing as solo caregiver, but it doesn't sound like it's forthcoming.

Unless your brother is her POA or shares duties with you, my advice would be to stop mom communicating with him. You could remove his contact information. You could disappear the phone. You could slip it into airplane mode. Discontinuing service is also an option.  

HB

Ed1937

One more thought on the phone. If she is using a cell phone, edit her contact for him, and change the number. How many of us know someone's number in this day and age? When she can't call him, tell her that he might have changed his number, and you can't reach him either.

I agree that you will need POA, and the best way to get it is with a consult with a CELA (certified elder law attorney). They will suggest a lot of different options for you/her to protect assets, cover all your bases, and let you know how Medicaid works in your state.

mommyandme (m&m)

Probably he or others will only understand fully if they come and stay with her for a week or so. I think he needs to block her calls.  Let him take responsibility for his own well being.  He may not read the book if he’s trying to disassociate from the situation, but good idea if he will.  If his anger, or whatever it is, is affecting you negatively, avoiding him may be necessary for your own mental health.  I’m thinking if he does distance himself now and finally visits, he may be surprised when mom has no idea who he is.  At least familiarity helps with their recollection  for awhile.  I hope the legal matter of POAs is taken care of so you can manage all things mom.  

Im very sorry for these struggles. This is a hard journey to travel.  Glad you found us. 

oehlsena

We also have gone through a similar situation and it only stopped when she could no longer figure out how to work her phone at her assisted living facility, and did not think anymore to ask a nurse to call for her.