Forgive me if this ends up very long but there is so much and I have to start at the beginning.
My paternal grandmother has never been the easiest person to get along with. She's stubborn, demanding, rude and often unpleasant. She has always been a fan of crying wolf to get her own way.
The senile dementia has not made her into a different person. It has mostly increased these less than palatable qualities. She has episodes where she cries, accuses everyone of not loving her and saying we'll all be sorry when she's dead. These aren't new. She just takes them farther.
The new things are even less manageable. The diagnosis was prompted by an episode where she accused my eighty-four year old grandfather of cheating on her with their home attendant and tried to strangle him. She now believes he is/was having an affair with a forty year old doctor and has a two year old with her. She will not let him out of the house. He has some currently benign tumors and needed to get more testing done. He has had to reschedule the appointment four times.
Yesterday I went to their apartment so I could watch her while he went to get the tests done. She had an episode, cried and begged him not to leave, told him her insides were on fire and she was going to die, accused him of being a horrible husband and so on and so forth. She pulled on a winter jacket over her housecoat and tried to run outside in that and slippers. I had to bodily maneuver her away from the door and into a chair four or five times. She tried to collapse onto the floor several times and the last one all I could do was manage her fall so she only slid down and didn't hurt herself at all. She demanded we call an ambulance and when we did, she continued to scream, saying we were having her committed and finally grandfather had to cancel the ambulance. Which was for the best because through the day it became obvious she was not in need of emergency care. When she eventually decided he should be allowed to go get the tests, he hid all the knives and forks.
Unfortunately my grandfather makes the bad situation worse. He only gives her half her medication dose per day because he thinks it's bad for her. He tries to reason with her when it's obvious she's having an episode and isn't responsive to outside stimuli at all. He isn't physically capable of lifting her if she falls or managing her while she's raging around the house. He tries to take care of her all by himself when he's not all that healthy himself and won't let the home attendant help as much as she could.
My father wants my grandfather to put her in a home where medically trained staff could provide proper care but he refuses. If anything happened to him though, that's where she'd be because my parents realize they can't quit their jobs, sell their house (it's a split level so she'd probably fall down the stairs) and take care of her 24/7. And I'm afraid something will happen to him because he doesn't take care of himself at all. In fact, taking aside the dementia, I think she's healthier than he is.
I'm considering convincing my parents to get power of attorney over her so they could have her in a home without my grandfather's agreement as I don't really think he's capable of making the best decision for her or himself. Except it'd probably shatter him.
It's a mess.
My paternal grandmother has never been the easiest person to get along with. She's stubborn, demanding, rude and often unpleasant. She has always been a fan of crying wolf to get her own way.
The senile dementia has not made her into a different person. It has mostly increased these less than palatable qualities. She has episodes where she cries, accuses everyone of not loving her and saying we'll all be sorry when she's dead. These aren't new. She just takes them farther.
The new things are even less manageable. The diagnosis was prompted by an episode where she accused my eighty-four year old grandfather of cheating on her with their home attendant and tried to strangle him. She now believes he is/was having an affair with a forty year old doctor and has a two year old with her. She will not let him out of the house. He has some currently benign tumors and needed to get more testing done. He has had to reschedule the appointment four times.
Yesterday I went to their apartment so I could watch her while he went to get the tests done. She had an episode, cried and begged him not to leave, told him her insides were on fire and she was going to die, accused him of being a horrible husband and so on and so forth. She pulled on a winter jacket over her housecoat and tried to run outside in that and slippers. I had to bodily maneuver her away from the door and into a chair four or five times. She tried to collapse onto the floor several times and the last one all I could do was manage her fall so she only slid down and didn't hurt herself at all. She demanded we call an ambulance and when we did, she continued to scream, saying we were having her committed and finally grandfather had to cancel the ambulance. Which was for the best because through the day it became obvious she was not in need of emergency care. When she eventually decided he should be allowed to go get the tests, he hid all the knives and forks.
Unfortunately my grandfather makes the bad situation worse. He only gives her half her medication dose per day because he thinks it's bad for her. He tries to reason with her when it's obvious she's having an episode and isn't responsive to outside stimuli at all. He isn't physically capable of lifting her if she falls or managing her while she's raging around the house. He tries to take care of her all by himself when he's not all that healthy himself and won't let the home attendant help as much as she could.
My father wants my grandfather to put her in a home where medically trained staff could provide proper care but he refuses. If anything happened to him though, that's where she'd be because my parents realize they can't quit their jobs, sell their house (it's a split level so she'd probably fall down the stairs) and take care of her 24/7. And I'm afraid something will happen to him because he doesn't take care of himself at all. In fact, taking aside the dementia, I think she's healthier than he is.
I'm considering convincing my parents to get power of attorney over her so they could have her in a home without my grandfather's agreement as I don't really think he's capable of making the best decision for her or himself. Except it'd probably shatter him.
It's a mess.