92 Year Old Grandmother (Dementia due to aging) & 63 Year Old Uncle (Frontotemporal Dementia)

kgriffin2023

My wife and I were recently appointed guardianship of her grandmother as her son whom has lived with her his entire life , he had epilepsy and had a right frontal lobotomy 20 years ago, she is suffering with extreme anosognosia of nothing being wrong with her (CHF,Fibroids, had 1 minor stroke and 2 heart attacks) and that her son is fine, unfortunately her and her son had a obsession of money in the bank account. We obtained a guardianship account and locked assets down as both her and her son were wasting assets and not properly paying bills. She has an extreme hatred of authority and being told no, we revealed that we had guardianship and she refused to accept this even being told by her 76yo niece and law enforcement that this was real. We were attempting to allow them to live together but with a camera in the common areas of the home, she assaulted my wife 3 times over not accepting guardianship and on the third occurrence fell backwards thankfully not hurt. We ICV'd her (Involuntarily committed her) and aren't quite sure what to do with the son as he has behavioral issues along with memory loss. My question is what do we do with him as he has limited ssi income ($700 month) and we cant use her guardianship for him, he is able bodied but not able minded unable to understand he cant get a drivers license in this state as he lacks the wherewithal to get insurance find dmv etc. He does not understand that mom has dementia and is unable to care for herself and he does not recognize her needs due to his situation. We had to block him and grandmothers 82yo brother from contact during the IVC as they both believe she is fine and want to help her out of the hospital to "bring her home" Any Ideas? I may have found a group home option that may allow both of them to live together, he has medicaid and she has medicare along with a decent pension. APS has been of no help and that was why guardianship was taken.

kgriffin2023

Also we do not desire guardianship over him due to him physically being capable and some bad sexual tendencies in his past prior to being this bad. He had used the er as a pcp in his home state and racked up 100s of thousands of medical debt which they would try to come after

Iris L.

Welcome kgriffin. The members here can give you good advice. But can the guardianship lawyer also give you some guidance as to what to do? If she is an elopement risk, with or without the son, you will need a locked facility. He would probably need a guardian ad litem if he is not capable of caring for himself.

Iris

harshedbuzz

@kgriffin2023

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but pleased you found this place. Your situation is a complicated one with a lot of moving parts.

Strong work on getting grandmother under guardianship. Given her personality, it may not be possible to allow the current living arrangement to continue. She may need to be moved to a secure MCF that is equipped to manage her volatile temperament as you describe it. As POA you not only have the right to act on her behalf around safety and fiduciary prudence, you have the obligation and could be held responsible is she goes rogue on you.

I would speak to the attorney who managed your case about steps you need to take to get your uncle on the radar of adult protective services and potentially have a guardian assigned. I expect given his age, assets and history behavior issues it will be difficult to place them together which is unfortunate and will likely incur the wrath of other people in the family.

If you do place grandmother and she does have a home, it makes sense to sell it to provide for her care going forward. This will mean evicting him, so you'll want to consult the attorney about what rights he may have as a tenant living there. He might qualify for low-income senior housing. If he has a competent guardian assigned, they will sort this out.

HB

kgriffin2023

Thank you all and right now they both are in limbo. Law enforcement had contact with him yesterday and recommended IVC on him which happened this morning. Really complex situation which there is not a lot of guidance on and aps/social services in this area is a joke and that was why we had to go guardianship route with grandma. When they both were ivc’d last year only reason he was released was he did not have Medicaid at that point and they were holding her but released her to him. Really hard situation as she is aware she will not pass competency tests/psychological exams and refuses to take them for doctors and psychiatrists. Last year the dr was like it’s obvious she has some sort of dementia but I can’t diagnose her because she wouldn’t test. This situation is really mentally exhausting as it’s 2 people with severe but different memory issues. The other family members only have phone contact with them over past 2 years and the issues have really accelerated in last 6 months. Based off of everything I have read Grandma is stage 5 dementia and he is stage 3/4 but because of the prior epileptic episodes and the lobotomy he is in many ways much worse than her.