I have no idea on what to do my mother is hearing full on conversations that I can't hear, and she says it is because the neighbors programed the AI for just her to hear them. On New Year’s Day I was woken up at 5am in the morning with police in the house wanting to ask me questions. My mother called the police and told them the neighbors drilled under the house to put spy cameras in the vents and used the video to make porn. None of which was true and they told me to get her to a doctor. My mother will not go to a doctor because she thinks it's all real. My mother woke me up at 3am she was outside said the house fell off the foundation and we have a crack in the roof. I had a foundation company look at the house nothing wrong with the house then she said I wonder why the neighbor lied to me then. The neighbor’s never even spoke to her it's all in her head. Then she said she had to turn the gas office in the house because the people in the furnace told the house was going to explode then she told me to look outside they were out there fixing it now. There was nobody outside we had freezing rain that night and I needed the heat back on before we had a bigger problem. How does someone out of their mind know how to shut the gas off? Today she saying we have hole in the foundation and it's a mess so she going to call a lawyer and sue the neighbors. The neighbors have done nothing to the house. I don’t know what to do.
The police have warned you. Next time they come because she called ask them to Baker act her. That your afraid she hurt herself or do something like burning down the house. She will be evaluated for 72 hrs. If they think she is psychotic tell them she cannot return home until she is properly medicated. You cannot care for her as long as she is like this.
Medical evaluation in hand, my husband applied for guardianship over both of his parents (father was already in a nursing home with dementia).
We had been unable to do anything to make his mother safe until we had the evaluation in hand as she refused to cooperate. Good luck
So it’s probably lingering as making matters worse. But the bigger issue is that she will not allow you to take her to the hospital or see a doc or go to the ER so that she can be evaluated and get on whatever meds she needs to get her stabilized and really get that UTI cleared up. My guess is more than a UTI now, maybe C Deff. If so try to get her hospitalized for treatment as she’s not likely ever going to be compliant for care at home so all this will be rinse & repeat. Plus it will give you time to get some rest so you can think clearly as you’ll need to make some hard decisions in the near future.
JoAnn is spot on that the easiest is to get her Baker Act to get her on the hold that it provides. Use all of what you’ve posted here for the bullet points you need to described her behavior to get the Baker done, she is a danger to herself and you and kinda the neighborhood too. Right now her paranoias are all fixated on the neighborhs but if she changes it over to you it’s going to get super scary. You want to get her help before this ever happens.
Let us know how it goes. Please try to get some real sleep too.
Video her with your phone if you can so you can show her what she was saying and doing. She will most likely call the cops again. Notice that she’s very sure of her beliefs. Don’t waste time arguing.
If she returns to a competent state you should have her sign power of attorney paperwork so you can take care of things should this recur.
Since Mom won't GO to seek medical advice, bring the medical advice to her.
Have you called her Doctor?
What did they advise?
Or a helpline?
Have you tried 911?
Explained, older lady, dellusional, hallucinating, past history UTI. Suspected UTI & needs medical investigation/treatment.
For people too mentally unwell to realise they are unwell & require urgent care, Baker Act can be used.
My FIL's hallucinations got so much worse when he got C-Diff. He was already in a SNF but he called DH and we had to talk him down several times until he felt safe because he thought he was trapped in a church basement, he thought he was at a party in the woods, he thought that the CNAs and nurses were locking him in his room (he had a new roommate and the curtain was pulled for the first time, so he couldn't see the door). But he was SCREAMING at us and wanting to know if we were in the parking lot coming to help him. It was really very sad and we had to call the nurses station at a couple of points to have him sedated.
This was before anyone realized he even had C-Diff because there were no signs - he was just being treated for the UTI and he was quite literally a danger to himself because he kept trying to get out of the bed to run away and kept falling because he didn't remember he couldn't walk. They lowered his bed and had to give him something to calm him down.
C-Diff can hang around for a long time - especially untreated. And even treated it takes a while to get out of your system - and can recur.
Before you jump to dementia - she definitely needs to be assessed for a UTI or C-diff - but unfortunately she may end up having to be admitted against her will to get that diagnosis if she won't go willingly because she is a danger to herself at this point.
When my sister was having hallucinations and delusions it ended up being pneumonia , sepsis, and metabolic encephalopathy .
The next time you make a trip to the ER for a UTI or for ANY reason she lands in the hospital you talk to the Social Worker or the Dr. or PA that is assigned and tell them what is going on and that she needs to be evaluated that "SHE IS NOT SAFE AT HOME" and honestly YOU are not safe in the house with her if she is able to shut off the gas or possibly do other dangerous things.
She needs to be evaluated and proper medication needs to be prescribed.
She can not be comfortable with the delusions and possible hallucinations she is having.
You should call 911 and ask for transport to hospital. Do not say this has been happening for a while, but rather say that your mother is hallucinating and you are scared to death she has sustained stroke or other blow to her head from fall, etc. That she needs assessment and doesn't understand she does, and will not allow you to get her to the ER.
The word "stroke" to EMS means they must act QUICKLY to get someone assessed, and so you may want to elaborate on some garbling of speech, whatever it takes to get them to take her to the ER. The more irrational SHE is with them, the better, the more likelihood they will get her in to be assessed.
Once at the ER you need to get everyone on board for a good neuro-psych evaluation and all the testing. Access Social Services as soon as possible.
This has been going on for a while from what you say. This could be untreated infection, but it sounds more like dementia to me, and Mom needs a baseline assessment now. Things cannot go on in this manner.
If none of this works, that is to say, if EMS believes your Mom and refuses to transport her it is time to call APS and tell them what is happening, and that you are incapable of getting your mother to care.
I sure wish you luck. You must be feeling so helpless. Do update us as to whether or not you get your Mom to assessment.
Find out if the home is destroyed, doe the insurance only pay for rebuilding, or can you just get the money? Some people in Florida were blindsided when they found out they had to rebuild after hurricanes because that’s the way their insurance reimbursed them.
How folks get around this is: If you’re well off, you have no mortgage and self insure. Or it’s owned by a LLC that has the ability to self insure. But for average folks, totally screwed unless you keep the homes assessor value low enough to be able to get total coverage by NFIP for flood or State Wind Pool for Windstorm. Only bright light in this is FL insurance crisis is way worse as they have so much more exposure.
On the have to rebuild, yes that is how policy’s are done…. older retired friends of ours when Katrina hit the coast had pretty snazzy primary home. House 800K+ completely gone, pier & bulkhead completely gone, 200K sailboat gone. So over 1M claim. Really good specialty coverage & paid out less depreciation without too much sass which was a rarity for Katrina claim. Right after Katrina, went & bought a condo over in Fairhope (couple hrs away) as an interim place till things settled down & could take their time 2 rebuild as infrastructure was wiped out. About a yr later got a demand letter from insurer for over half a million $ as they had not complied with terms of their policy on rebuilding. LSS condo was too modest in cost & no boat! Lawyers hired & after much back & forth they ended up having to buy another condo and a boat and actually go above the balance of the insurance payout in order to keep the $. Had to get all sorts of letters from county & Fema as to why bulkhead and pier could not yet be rebuilt to keep that payout. These folks had time & $ & resources to do all this. But most stuck in the aftermath of a disaster do not. Dealing with post Katrina stuff was a real touchstone for me…… it was dealing with all types of insurance and real estate issues plus a little bit of everything “at need” either for me or my fam or my MiL. I kept a diary for 2 years. It’s pretty crazy rereading.
I hope you can use the Baker Act. Good luck to you in this dreadful situation.
If you are the POA, just take her or call an ambulance to take her if it gets out of hand. It's tough love but sometimes it can get physical if the hallucinations are too bad.
If this is just due to alzheimers or cognitive decline, and not from an infection, my best advice is to NOT try to correct everything they're saying. It only causes more stress and frustration for them. I took care of a man who consistently hallucinated that he was playing baseball, basketball, or working on the farm. So instead of telling him that we weren't doing those things I'd ask him who was winning.
Also, there is a pressure point on the butt of your palm about halfway between your thumb and wrist that when massaged, will calm a person down at least a couple notches pretty quick. I would say, oh your hands look a little dry, I'll rub some lotion on. He'd be fast asleep in under 2 minutes. Hope this helps and good luck.
TIAs are used often by a NH or a MC or a AL when they have a resident that they want to get rid of as TIAs are real real subjective as to how they “present” or look. So the usual take will be is they seem to be not connecting their words, or there’s seems to be a sense of vacantness about them, or their movement seems weird. And TIAs can be real fleeting, so they can pass quickly. Perhaps some of the RNs on this site can chime in on TIAs???
But TIAs can be viewed as a precursor to a stroke so should be seen by health care provider in appropriate setting and presto! that means mom needs to go to the ER or ED and get seen there so then once she’s there, you tell them all about the other issues….. multiple UTIs and her very much noncompliance for treatment on those UTIs so she gets admitted as a patient (not observation but a full on patient in the hospital) and once she’s admitted you then refuse to take her home as it WOULD BE AN UnSAfE DISCHARGE as you cannot provide the care and oversight needed for her. What all this does is buys you time to get a clear picture of just wtf is wrong with her and hopefully get her on proper meds. If she’s C diff, push to have her hospitalized for that treatment as could be couole of weeks & yes Medicare will pay. Plus gives her behavioral drugs time to get going in her bloodstream & brain for the win!
if mom has one of her psychotic episodes while in the ER, let her. That she goes there’s aliens under my bed, let it roll. You want her hospitalized.
once this is somewhat settled - whether it’s she’s going to be in a behavioral unit for a period of time or sent over to rehab or she’s after a couple of weeks sent home on mood stabilization drugs - then you can start to deal with her financials and property ownership issues and what that could mean for your own future financial stability. That’s to me more of a springtime thing. Realistically until she stops being batcrap crazy nothing can be done on that front. She really can’t sign stuff right now as not competent and cognitive or appear to be even if she would be pleasant and willing to sit at a bank to do what needed totally solo in a bank officers office. Fwiw imho if she sadly is going to stay crazy, then the path is guardianship and you’re going to need all these recent hospitalization records to establish need for guardianship. Getting her onto hospital records and in detail mucho importante, you see where I’m going in this, right?
also please pls do get yourself some real sleep. You have to be able to think clearly and answer questions clearly. Let us know how things go. Many of us on this site have been where you are.
These are your words not anyone else's. What does that say to you about what condition your mother is in mentally?
It says to me that she's not in her right mind. For whatever the reason is, dementia, a UTI, a TIA.... there's no way of finding out unless she goes to a hospital.
If you have to have her transported against her will, do that. I'm surprised the police didn't do that when she called them at 5 in the morning about the spy cameras filming her.
It may turn out to be something that can be treated with medication like a UTI or a staph infection (they wreck havoc on a senior's mental state too). It could be Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. Does she have a history of mental illness? It sounds like she might.
It may be time to consider placing her in a care facility.
I wonder if melatonin will work as I wished she can take that. This goes on everyday and 8-12 hours a day. Nothing you can say or do but nod. If you say that isn’t true she becomes irate for hours. She just sits in her electric recliner and hollers they also coming in from the TV.
Anyone with ideas ? I can only tried to divert attention to something else for her.
You take her. No options.
You cannot talk 'reason' to a person with hallucinations.
If needed, you make up a story "we are going to the park to see the flowers and birds." - you do whatever works to gain her cooperation to get in the car and go.
Your mother should NOT be living alone-if she is living with you, doors may need to have locks so she cannot go outside unescorted. She may need to be in a facility with 24/7 care.
You need to educate yourself on what dementia is, i.e.,
* The different kinds of dementia
* How the different kinds of dementia affect different parts of the brain, and how.
* How the brain changes.
* You are 'trying' or expecting to talk to your mother as if her brain / cognitive functioning is in 'full tact.' It isn't. [You may feel you are very very respectful listening to her and giving her options however this doesn't work any longer.]
* You need to 'meet her where she is now,' which is having visions / experiences 'in her mind's eye / brain = hallucinations.
Read / google Teepa Snow. Learn what is going on in your mom's brain so you can better manage the situation. Speak to her with compassion/ate understanding knowing she is seeing and hearing things that are not there. It is her brain chemistry changing / losing brain cells.
Medication may help. Get her to an MD ASAP.
Gena / Touch Matters
this is when we decided mom could no longer live on her own and placed her in a assisted living facility.
it’s a very sad disease that definitely needs research to help the aging population we will have with all these baby boomers.
prayers to you…