So scary, Purr-rito. I haven’t heard of that but sounds like a great idea.
How frightening @Purr-rito! Amazing your dad was able to use the bus. I wonder if that is a childhood memory. I never remembered my mom taking a bus, but she sure has it in her head at times to wait for the bus to take her places. I usually tell her the bus comes “tomorrow.”
I think a way you can track your dad is a great idea. But, it just resolves the problem of wandering and finding him. It doesn’t help with other executive function problems such as cooking or wandering in traffic. My father likes to fiddle, and when we moved him out of his assisted living place, we noticed some cut electrical wires which I suspect he was “fixing” (electrical engineer). I naively thought I could keep my parents at independent living as long as there were resources around them. But people are different. Your dad might be fine with just a tracking device, but I couldn’t get my dad to wear one as he kept taking it off not remembering what it was for.
I have to admit, I don’t sleep better at night knowing they have 24 hour care as I mourn for their independence. I think I have more trouble adjusting than they do. But I also know that I didn’t have any other options. I would explore what those options are. There are other options to memory care such as in-home aides and sitters and even video systems. But, I found most physically healthy people with dementia, such as my parents, will need some stepped up care as dementia progresses.
I feel we’re approaching a similar situation. My mom lives alone in an apartment and appears to be functioning pretty well at 86. However, increasingly, she tells us one thing and we find the opposite to be reality. She takes quite a few pills on a daily basis as a result of a 50 year cardiac condition. We found a local pharmacy that packages her daily morning and evening pills into packets. I live 400 miles away and call her late morning every day and my first question is always, Have you taken your pills?" Inevitably the answer is either yes, or “I will take them as soon as we get off the phone.” More than once my local sister has visited later in the day and found she had not taken the pills she insisted she had. My mother is fiercely private and has enough agency to fight against help in her apartment but my sisters and I are getting to the point when we will have to insist. This is so tough - I never contemplated having to override her wishes but we may have no choice. On the positive side, since she prefers to live like a hermit, she never gets the urge to just go out, still knows where she lives, and managed to order flowers for my sister’s birthday over the phone with her credit card.
@runnersmom – I cannot recall where, but I think I have read about a pill reminder system that will notify someone at a distance, probably via text, but I did not pay attention as this has not been a problem yet. Of course, this would require that your local sister sort the pills into the electronic pill container each week.
We tried that (or a version of that) but what we settled on today is that when I call, she will take the pills when we’re on the phone together, and I can hear her take them and use her inhaler. I told her she’d kill us before she kills herself otherwise and she doesn’t want that. Good thing is she still has a good sense of humor so she laughed and agreed pretty easily. We’ll see - new day, new problem.
@GTalum It is scary for demented parents fiddling with electrical items. My parents’ friend was kicked out of his memory care unit because of something like that. He was an electrician by trade. One day when going to his room they found he had used a spoon handle to cut out all of the electrical outlets he could get to and the wall light switch. Something in his brain told him he needed to “fix” them.
Momory care should certainly keep a better eye on patients.
When my former mother-in-law, who has Alzheimer’s, was still ambulatory, she did things such as the following: 1) Put a cooked pie on a hot burner on the stove, to cool off. The ceramic pie dish exploded. 2) Regularly reached into the sink garbage disposal to pull things out. Things that were supposed to be there. 3) Regularly pulled items out of the recycling and garbage, including things with sharp edges and used tissues.
People with dementia are not children, but they sometimes do things that seem child-like. So child-proofing the house is not a bad idea.
Yes @silverlady, exactly the stuff my dad would do. He would also pull things off walls and then dig in the walls. He is just trying to be “helpful.” I’m convinced he would be kicked out of a traditional memory care as there is no way they could put up with stuff he does. Such behaviors have subsided as he has gotten used to things.
@kjofkw - We have had the same thing with our LTC policy. Its gone up a lot in the past 2 years, but I don’t want to let it go. I figure its an investment in my future care, if needed. We never used my mom’s LTC insurance (that was a mistake) but did for the last year and a half of my dads life. It was very helpful.
Has anyone set up a formal system of being paid for care giving, care oversight, or financial management for their elder or elders? A friend of mine, who has 4 siblings, set up a system in which they pay one sibling for financial management and another sibling for care giving hours. This seems fair to me but if I set something like this up for myself, it would be a unilateral decision or should it be a formal agreement that is agreed to by the children of my deceased brother who will inherit 50% of the estate upon my parent’s death? My niece is involved with getting status updates, but both niece and nephew live on the other coast and don’t visit. I know my brother, if alive, would readily agree to such an arrangement. But would it create resentment among family members?
I, personally, don’t see anything wrong with being remunerated for some of the care responsibilities. One way to do this would be to discuss it with your parents before they get to the point of needing care so that you know in advance how to proceed, though so many older people would not be comfortable with this discussion! I have told my kids that whomever gets stuck with us should pay themselves for all that time and effort. Or you could discuss it with the siblings/heirs when the time comes? I am not sure that I would feel like running it by nieces and nephews. Or, if you are all alone, making all the decisions, you could do it, keep good records and go with a rate that is similar to what you would pay an outsider for that care. If it comes up later you can let others know how you arrived at the amounts paid, if they ask.
If there is even a remote possibility that Medicaid will come into play, do a caregiver agreement. I can provide more details, if you’d like. In my state, if Medicaid is an issue, a written, notarized agreement is required; if there is not such an agreement, all payments to the family caregiver above a specified amount (about $10,000 to $15,000 total) will be considered divestments.
Is the person receiving care still competent?
We had MIL contribute something toward the related household expenses when she lived with us. Frankly, I could defend the amounts, if Medicaid later questioned. Also the costs of a part time attendant, when she had that. My bff was remunerated for costs related to visiting her mother in care daily to feed her breakfast, oversee the hired staff that came in 10-12 hours/day. (She was in AL because it was the best/closest facility, but bedridden and suffered dementia, as did my MIL.)
This would be for my parents who are incapable of making decisions. I spend about 10 hours a month with just money management, dealing with doctor’s visits, being “on call” with the staff, talking to the director, making sure they are getting appropriate medical care, dealing with social security. I even sew lacerations (I am a nurse practitioner). This doesn’t count routine visits of about 3 times a week each for my husband and myself which I don’t think we should be paid for.
I don’t think they will ever be eligible for Medicaid. The only heirs to the estate are myself/50% and niece and nephew 50%. Though I do 100% of the management. I’m not sure how I could do a caregiver agreement.
Speak with an elder attorney or an accountant who specializes in this area. My accountant advised me to set this up when I took over the sole care for my aunt and regretfully, I never did. There was a step-daughter that was not in the will but was left the house through ownership and did none of the care, (medical, medicine), planning and paying for a live in, taxes, money or house managing, repairs, upkeep, food supply and was still a thorn in my side. I should have set it up as a legal agreement and received compensation for the hours.
@GTalum, do your parents have financial power of attorney documents or are they under guardianships?
@rosered55 I have financial power of attorney for my parents. I have control of the money. I just want to do the “right” thing. @ECmotherx2 what were you advised to set up?
I suggest looking at the financial power of attorney document and seeing which powers you are specifically granted. The document might bar the agent from taking compensation; on the other hand, the document might specifically allow compensation of the agent. If it does allow compensation, it might still be a good idea to talk to the other beneficiaries. If you have a lawyer, run the issue past him or her, also.
My state’s statutory form durable power of attorney contains the following provision:
LIMITATION ON AGENT’S AUTHORITY
An agent who is not my spouse or domestic partner MAY NOT use my property to benefit the agent or a person to whom the agent owes an obligation of support unless I have included that authority in the special instructions.
@GTalum We’re in a different situation but with similar concerns about doing the right thing with multiple beneficiaries. DH is both executor of MIL’s will and trustee of her trust. Since she died earlier this year, he’s been handling the emptying and sale of her bloated, stuffed, large house while working 500 miles away. I’ve been wrangling communications, documents, funds, bills, accounts, reports for reimbursement, and emotions.
The beneficiaries of her estate are DH (an only child), DS1 and DS2, and three charities whose ideals are precious to our entire (small) family. Because our work translates as a gift to the other recipients of MIL’s generosity, DH and I decided not to charge for what we were doing. MIL’s attorneys, however, explicitly told us more than once that we could bill the estate and / or trust for handling things.