Mom early/quickly progressing dementia

Hi Docgus and welcome to the forum. What a terrible situation and I'm sorry for it, but you have come to a good place for help and advice.

This may sound harsh and i don't mean it to, but: if you are POA, you need to enforce it and you have an obligation not to just go along but to act in their best interest. Honestly, your mother does not really have a choice here any longer. There is absolutely no way she should be driving--she and you, if you are POA--could stand to lose everything they have, not to mention the tragedy that could ensue from a fatal accident. The car needs to disappear. Say it's been stolen, if you have to, and talk to the local police to let them know that's not the case should she call to report it.

If she is paranoid, you may have to hospitalize her against her will to get her assessed on a geriatric psychiatry unit. I had to do that last year so I know whereof I speak (though it was my partner, not my parent). It's very hard, I know, but the advantage is that the social workers in the hospital can then help your arrange an appropriate living situation for both of them.

All of us who live through this go through various phases of realizing that things are worse than you think and the time to act is now. You have probably been like the frog in the proverbial gradually heating water here, and you are likely very close to the boiling point. You are not going to be able to convince her or get her buy-in. But you have to do it anyway and you have to be the goat, unless/until she forgets. Safety drives the decision-making.

I'm sure others will chime in. Please keep posting and let us know what happens.

You had a good plan for your parents, I am sorry it has not worked out so far. The first thing is to never let the great granddaughter ride with them again. It is just too dangerous. If you can, consult with a lawyer about your DPOA, find out what you can and cannot do, and whether it is good in both states. Having the car have mechanical problems might be better initially, especially if you think your mom might call the police. Is the motor home drivable?

I agree with getting the doctors informed as to what is going on. Has your moms PCP evaluated her recently with a focus on her behavior and her getting lost? Your moms behavior is similar to that of early stage dementia, whether that is the cause or not. The PCP could check the usual causes and possibly provide medication that might help, and if you look at the You tube channels of Dementia Careblazers and Teepa Snow you might get some info on how to interact with her that will reduce her behavior.

If your dads doctor knows what is going on perhaps he could say it would be a good idea that your dad have more care available to him for a couple of weeks. If you sell it as temporary, maybe your mom would move back. One step at the time.

Do you know what is drawing your mom back to her home besides the doctor visits? Are there family and friends she is visiting? Is your father going just for her or also for himself? In the later stages of dementia our LOs often "want to go home" sometimes when they are in the home they have lived in for 20+ years. Sometimes that desire is caused by an unmet need, emotional or physical, sometimes it is just that "home" is where they thought they would be like they used to be, younger and well.

We never know for sure what will work, so trying everything is sometimes the best option. 🙄

One of the many difficult parts about this disease for me is still all the lies we have to tell our PWD to keep them safe and get them to cooperate in the ways we need them to. I know here we call them fiblets because they are done only from a place of love and care, but it is still hard to get past the notion that I have to keep lying to my mom. But, I do it because it is one of the only things that works in a lot of circumstances. For instance, your mom refuses to see a doctor closer to you and insists you drive her 3 hours to her own doctor - solution a fiblet that her doctor retired or moved to another state and you have to find a new doctor together. Making sure they can no longer drive when it’s not safe anymore - solution a fiblet the car had to go in for repairs, when it takes longer to fix than she will believe, the part is on back order, they found more wrong with the car when one issue is “fixed”, just keep kicking that can down the road. She doesn’t want to move to the home on your property for her own good- solution, a fiblet it’s not for her it’s for your dad because he needs more medical care right now and it’s only temporary. I agree if she’s being paranoid, it might be a good time to start finding meds that help. We waiting too long to start that with my mom and we are struggling to find ones that help while she’s in MC. We’ve been forewarned by the director of nursing that if her agitation and combativeness gets worse, we are looking at a geriatric psych admittance to get her behaviors worked out so she can stay in MC. It’s so much easier to start addressing problems before they escalate, and sadly with this disease escalate they will. Another way I found to get my mom to cooperate is to distract her with something else. She responds to humor so if I can do or say something silly or bring up a past funny incident to get her to focus on I can usually turn a previous no into a yes long enough to get her to do what I need her to do. Also, we need to remember even though their brains are broken and not working like they used to they still can feel sad and scared and grief for all they have lost to this disease including autonomy, independence, making their own decisions. I find that when I enlist my mom’s help and give her options to solve a problem I can get her to cooperate better than if I act like a drill sergeant and tell her to do something. For instance when she’s refusing to go to the dining room to eat dinner, if I just tell her it’s dinner time and she needs to go eat, I usually get a “no, it’s bedtime, I don’t eat now.” But when I say “they are setting up the dining room for dinner, should we go see what they are preparing to eat and help?” I usually get “yes, we can do that” . The saying “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” really helps when trying to get cooperative behavior from PWD so we always have to keep looking for the honey that will work in each situation and avoid the vinegar. Hope this helps. Keep coming back and posting for more help and support. This is a good, safe place and everyone here is so helpful.