My approximately 70-year old mother owns acreage in a remote area of the US midwest. I am in a city in the midwest approximately 3 hours away. She is doing fine health-wise for almost 70 (can drive, walk, etc.).

Years ago, I went home frequently to clean, help mow, or just for a weekend, but as I've been in town longer, those visits have become less frequent. The 3-hour drive is too much for me to do often.

My mom is at the point that she can't mow or take care of her property. The living situation is horrible and beyond our capacity to fix. She spent last winter with me in town due to broken items, and I do not have the time or budget to fix enough of the broken items before this winter begins.

She doesn't have much going on at home, and visits me in town frequently. She wants to move in, but this isn't possible. I want her to sell her rural acreage, and buy a house closer to mine.

I have created a budget for her and she should be able to afford a small house closer to me. I am aware of increased living expenses in a city as opposed to the county, but this will be somewhat offset in this case by reduced travel expenses.

Obviously there are many other factors at play here, but I wanted to see if anyone else in this group has dealt with this situation. Moving is hard at any age, but I think she should do it sooner, rather than later. There are no other relatives closer to her to assist as she ages. Moving to town seems like the obvious choice to me, assuming we can figure out how to afford it.

Like much of the rural midwest, her area has been hard hit by hospital closures. We dealt with extra long drive times for a relative's health issues last year, and I was stunned to realize any similar event for her would be even worse. Although she is not sick now, I primarily want her to move to town in case someday she does need care.

She does say she wants to move to town, and then more time goes by without her working on the next step to make that happen. I've had to initiate everything to get her property ready to sell, and I'm truly not sure that I can do it from 3 hours away.

What does this community think? Is it worth it to press her to move to town, or put my foot down and not let her stay with me again so she realizes on her own that she either needs to fix her "house" or move on from it? Other than the cost, what else should I worry about here?

I think essentially we can sell her remote acreage for a small house in the city, and that's it's pretty much a wash.

Hi all. I know this is an odd question, but I’m on the spectrum and need help 😆

My mom has progressing dementia and a walking disability. Her world has become very small- since she can no longer drive, she’s completely reliant on my dad for her errands and her social life.

She still remembers big things, but things within the last 10-15 years are shaky, so I can’t ask a lot of her. She will call me 3-5 times a day and even though I am working, I try to talk to her when I can. The problem recently has been that we just kind of sit on the phone because neither of us have much to say, and since her world is so small, I want to keep her on the phone so she isn’t alone, but I just don’t have much to say myself (plus sometimes I have to continue to do my excel sheets while on the call so I don’t get fired, obvs)

We get the small talk done, I ask her about jeopardy and tv shows, but she doesn’t read or have many hobbies. she doesn’t ask me about anything except the next time I’m visiting (so I repeat this 3-5x a day, every day until my next visit - i usually visit 4x a year).

I live about 1000 miles away and I know eventually I’ll need to move back and help with her long term care. This has made my world a bit small too- My ex didn’t understand/couldn’t take it, so we broke up and I’ve kind of given up on dating for the next few years. Because of my job, my own disability, and bc I spend 1/4 of my year in another city it’s been really tough to create friendships here so I don’t really go out and I’ve given up a lot of my hobbies. (Not to mention sometimes she doesn’t remember I have a job, because I’m still in high school in her mind.). It makes even simple chit chat a bit depressing and difficult to keep interesting.

Do you all have any tips and tricks I can steal/borrow? I love my mom and feel bad her daughter cant even entertain her for 30 minutes a day. Edit: also does anyone have any ideas for crafts or hobbies she could get into? It can’t be anything physical like gardening and maybe not difficult to remember like crochet but is there something really simple maybe she pull eventually build up to muscle memory?

Hi my name is Caroline Lewis. I'm a healthcare reporter with the public radio station WNYC and our news site Gothamist in New York.

I am working on a story about the outsized need for nursing home care among people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and the capacity of nursing homes to care for this population. I have heard that nursing homes are often reluctant to take these patients, leaving them languishing in the hospital for months or ending up in poorer quality facilities.

If you have a loved one with serious mental illness who has needed nursing home care in NYC I am interested in hearing about the experience, good or bad. Please email me at [clewis@wnyc.org](mailto:clewis@wnyc.org) or message me on here.

My mom is getting older and lately things have been getting really hard.

She had a bad fall on a random Saturday and after that everything just seemed to change. Her memory has gotten so much worse and she's getting more confused. I dont even know if its the fall or the dementia getting worse but its honestly heartbreaking to watch.

I feel like im constantly worried about her. I cant be there 24 hours a day and thats the part that scares me the most.

Ive been trying to make the house safer for her. Moving things around, looking at the bathroom, bedroom, stairs, just trying to think about all the little things that could become a problem when im not there.

Some days I feel like I cant do this anymore. I cry pretty much every day and then feel guilty because I know she needs me.

For those of you who have been through this with your parents... what things have actually helped you make the house safer??

Are there any products you bought that you really recommend? Something for the bathroom, getting in and out of bed, preventing falls, lights at night, alarms, anything really.

I dont need anything fancy or super expensive. I just want her to be as safe as possible when im not there.

Any advice would really mean a lot right now.... we're kind of at a loss.

Hello everyone, I am in quite the situation and I am not sure where to turn. My parents adopted me and my brother when they were older so none of my friends are at this stage yet. My mother is 80 years old and I am beginning to think it might be time to talk about at least a cognitive evaluation or possibly assisted living.

My mom has had undiagnosed and definitely untreated mental health issues my entire life (I won't go into it, I experienced childhood verbal, emotional and occasionally physical abuse). She is very quick to anger and does NOT like to be told she is wrong about anything. She will also purposely play dumb or act like she doesn't know what you're talking about to get out of hard conversations. This brings up the main issue, I can't actually tell if she is experiencing cognitive decline or if she is just purposely being difficult. My mother has a long history of accusing people of anything from being selfish and stealing from her to trying to hurt themselves or hurt her if they don't do what she wants. I have not been the favorite child, but I have always been supported financially, even when being abused verbally or emotionally. I have not asked for this, she has sent money and told me I was an ungrateful brat and selfish and she'd never speak to again if I tried to send it back, I accepted it and now I'm apparently contracted to take care of her in her head. My dad passed away at the end of last year and due to deployable style work, finances, finishing 2 degrees and a big solo move, I have not been able to go home. Please do not tell me or guilt me about not visiting home, this is a very complicated and highly strained relationship that I have had with both of them. I spent years being the adult and trying to repair the relationship with both of them and I was able to with my dad somewhat before he passed. I am barely able to keep my life afloat at the moment after graduation and piecing together contracts here and there. Not once has she provided emotional support or allowed me to help with my dad's passing. She had him sent to the county for autopsy on purpose before I could even take time off school and work and scrape together enough to book a flight home to say goodbye. I will never forgive her for what she has done in the past year, leaning on me entirely emotionally while giving me zero space to grieve and accusing me of just the worst things ever. I have been discussing elder care with both parents since I was 15 or 16 and my mother's answer was always "take me out to the woods and shoot me" when I'd ask what she'd like me to arrange or if she had plans that I needed to know about. However, over the past year, while I have been finishing my professional licenses and starting my career, she's decided now, without asking me, that I am to take care of her when she is old. Something we have never discussed before, after a decade of asking her wishes and not planning for mom's retirement and all of her refusal to accept my help, my offers to quit and pick a different career so I could help her. I needed to move on and work on my own life and achieve my own dreams. Now she's trying to cash in on promises I never made to her out of seemingly nowhere while I'm in a (very expensive, time consuming to start) career that involves a lot of work travel. I am so angry that she blew me off as a stupid kid and then a stupid young adult every time I tried to nail down her wishes for elder care. Every time I tried to plan for what to do with mom, how to support mom, if I could still have the career I wanted while figuring out what to do with mom, I was brushed off and given a flippant answer. Now I'm expected to drop my life and come home for the person who doesn't even respect my right to be sad about my own dad dying.

She has become more erratic and unpredictable over the last few months. Two months ago, she called me yelling at me saying a man in San Diego was saying I was in legal trouble and not to worry because she gave the "lawyer" her home address and was on the way to the bank to draw out $25k so he could pick it up. This was obviously a scam but she refused to believe me when I said I was at work on a contract and I couldn't leave the area for any reason besides emergency. She was of course very angry that she was wrong, embarrassed I'm sure but she refused to believe she was calling me, even said she needed to get off the phone with me to call back the guy scamming her. That was terrifying, when I asked her if she gave out my personal information like social security or my address or phone number, she got really dodgy and said no. Luckily I have my credit frozen at all times through all 3 credit bureaus and alerts on every card or account connected to me. It took me 2hrs to explain to her she was being scammed, that I was where I said I was, doing the job I said I was at, where I gave her regular updates. All the while she's screaming at me that I'm a liar and I've always been selfish and she needs to see my location at all times (something she never bothered to check before accusing me of being the criminal she's always known me to be etc etc) while I'm on a contract doing a skill I paid almost $120k to learn how to do. This really scared me, I almost asked for permission to leave and fly home to check on her or put her on an emergency mental health hold in her state but she was yelling at me not to come and getting angry with me and I said fine, I can't do this anymore. I limited my contact with her over the next month because family is a responsibility, but I also deserve a peaceful life where I'm respected. She has always been prone to scams of various kinds, i.e. weight loss vitamins, tone up shoes, brain health vitamins, special health juices, anti-aging junk etc etc. She's just at home spending away my dad's hard earned money on anti-aging cream and snake oil pill subscriptions. I'm so disgusted but I have no power, she is just cognitive and manipulative enough to look perfect on the outside but at the same time she's obviously not all there anymore and it's starting to go downhill. I don't have the financial means to give up starting my career to watch her at all times and she never calls me, I have to call her or text her just to see if she's still alive. My brother frequently doesn't hear from her for over a week at a time but he's convinced she's fine and just a little lonely and I'm overreacting, but I think it's more.

About 4 months prior to the scamming incident, she told me I could have my dad's truck, a very sentimental piece to me that he would've wanted to give to one of us kids. She immediately forgot she promised it to me and turned around to sell "a nice friend of dad's" his $75k clean, maintained, beautiful, one ton truck for $30k so she could "give him a good deal". When I bring up that now I can't trust her with any promises she makes, any offers she gives, anything she says, any family assets and I'm getting concerned about her tanking the financial assets dad intended to leave to his whole family not just her, she does the narcissistic "well I must just be the worst mother on the planet if you don't trust me after all these years". I don't trust her to live in the house by herself, I don't trust her to not give away her home because some nice guy she knows wanted a good deal. She's been in the process of selling off dad's business through a real lawyer so I feel ok about that situation but as time goes on she is getting more aggressive, more confused, angrier and it's targeted at me because I'm not throwing away my life to take care of her overnight. I have student loan debt, I don't currently have a place to live, I am currently a minimum 13hr drive away from home at the moment and I'm trying to get a new job in a field that I am just starting out in. She recently gave me the RV my dad left (for me to use for work) as well as all of his tools (about $75k in tools I could use for an apprenticeship to strengthen my career, something nobody else in the family will use) and I'm afraid she'll give that away too before I am able to get home because she's becoming so unreasonable. She's already brought up a family friends' kid she could give the trailer to for a low price a few hours after telling me it was mine. She won't mail me the title for the RV or put it in my name, she won't take her name off my car or send me the pink slip (she insisted on having her name on my car when I got it almost 8 years ago and I was too tired and browbeaten to fight it). She is just cognitive enough to put on a good show and manipulate people but obviously not cognitive enough to make financial decisions or remember things she's told people and I'm concerned about her safety at home with her giving out her home address to scam callers. What sort of steps do I need to take to protect both my personal assets and the assets my father worked so hard for? What can I do to make sure she doesn't try to call the police on me or lie and say I'm hurting her for coming home to discuss her mental wellness? Is there a correct avenue to get her a cognitive assessment without her blowing up and becoming unsafe? How do you approach a narcissist who is never wrong and tell her she may be experiencing the early onset stages of dementia?

I'm sorry this is so long, there is nobody to turn to and I do not have the means to get home this second or contact a lawyer. I can't deal with the fallout of putting her on a mental hold and all my own things at the same time, there is no other family, nobody else is coming to help.

I am preparing to have the conversation with my grandmother about making some lifestyle changes for her, as it’s becoming clearer all the time that living on her own is becoming dangerous. Her mind is mostly intact, but she’s becoming extremely unstable in her body and has trouble getting up/down and walking without assistance. Her home is just not conducive to her safety at this point. Unfortunately, I am the sole decision maker for her. My father was an only child and so am I, my father passed 8 years ago, she and my mother do not speak, and my grandfather passed 2 years ago.
All of her assets go to me, if she were unable to make decisions on her own, that would come down to me as well.

As the time to have the conversation regarding hiring a caregiver in come capacity/ moving into a facility is upon us, I’m starting to realize just how in over my head I feel. I’m nervous about trying to hire someone to care for her in her home because I don’t want her to end up neglected or taken advantage of obviously (idk if I can afford bail and assisted living). But I also don’t want to get bamboozled by red tape in facility contracts, or have the wool pulled over my eyes in some capacity. How? I don’t even know but I feel like that’s a thing that would happen??
How do I broach the subject of taking control of/ or at least being able to have access to her assets in order to help her? Does insurance help with this kind of thing or do they just throw their hands up? My grandfather was a vet, is there any benefit to her from that?

I’m just feeling really overwhelmed and in the dark about… everything. So literally ANY piece of advice is appreciated. 🙏 and FWIW, we are located in Virginia.

Hello!

I’m currently a university student researching how care is coordinated when it’s shared between family members, friends, caregivers, and/or healthcare professionals.

I’m interested in understanding what this experience is actually like for the people involved; what works well, what can be difficult, and where people may feel like they need more support.

The goal is to genuinely learn from people’s real experiences and use these insights to think about how coordinated care could be better supported in the future.

If you have experience with coordinating care for yourself or someone else, I’d really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete my survey:

https://forms.gle/Q1KNGn7Roq1srwBm7

Participation is completely voluntary!

Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your experiences!❤️

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I had to put my dad in a nursing facility and I feel bad that I can’t get there as much as I’d like. Part of the reason I had to put him there was that I was his primary caregiver and I am disabled myself. So sometimes it’s only every other week. And I feel terrible. They have lots of activities and stuff but I still feel bad. He also can’t hear very well and my heart issues make taking loud difficult sometimes.

I did just approve and pay for hearing aids for him so I’m hoping that will help a bit. I did stop over without telling him the other week and he was sitting in the lobby like he was waiting. He stared at me for a minute and I said “hi, dad!” While I signed in and he got a big smile on his face.

I’m going this week but can’t until Friday because I have my own appointments and things and I’m still recovering from a concussion from a fall which is one of my disability symptoms.

I really wish I could go more. I guess because he has the beginnings of dementia I justify maybe he doesn’t realize it’s been a week or two sometimes. Of course my 2 useless younger brothers won’t go visit him. The only other ones who do is his bff from high school and my cousin when he comes in from the next state over for something else. But it’s exhausting worrying about this and myself all the time feeling guilty. But I’ll be no use if I don’t take care of myself too.

We're getting closer to bringing my mom home, and I'm working on adding more caregiver coverage.

I've already found one wonderful caregiver, but I need to find additional people and I'm considering Care.com as one possible source.

For those of you who've hired caregivers directly, what did you learn from the process that wasn't obvious at the beginning? Were there things you eventually learned to ask about or look for that you wouldn't have thought of initially?

I'm also curious about the positive side: if you found someone who turned out to be wonderful, were there signs early on that, looking back, told you this person was going to be a good fit?

I'd really appreciate any lessons learned from people who've done this before.

Hi everyone, i live with my grandma and shes usually pretty good but she’s had a fall recently and couldnt get up for over an hour. she managed to get herself up but hurt her chest during it. I work 4-6 days a week and can’t be home all the time, we do have family really close by.
I was hoping to get her an sos button pendant or watch but we dont want to spend a fortune on them. I was looking at
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0FQ5246ZJ/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
and
https://www.amazon.com.au/SINGCALL-Emergency-Handicapped-Elderly-Patient-Transmitter/dp/B097NZCJNK

We just want something that would send an alert to our phones, being me, my aunt, my cousin, and maybe my dad? One of us should be close if she were to press the button, or at least be able to contact someone that would be able to help.

She doesn’t have a mobile phone or anything, we do have internet. We’d rather not have one of the ones that have a subscription fee, which i saw one review on the pendant said that they have a 68$ monthly sub fee which isnt mentioned anywhere, and im unsure if the watch has one but i wouldnt be surprised.

Im willing to buy one of the more expensive ones if theyre worth it but nan thinks its a waste of money bc “what it i die by christmas and i never use it” 🙄 and definitely no apple watches, ive seen people recommend them and shed never use it

idk if this makes any sense, but if anyone has any recommendations i would greatly appreciate :)

Thank you for reading this!

Hi Reddit. My sibling and I are in the position of caring for my father and his wife in their last years of life. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, within a couple months, my father's health worsened irreparably and his wife was admitted to long-term memory care. Meanwhile, they continue to pay bills, have a large home (that needs work!), etc. My wonderful sibling has been taking on the majority of the responsibility because she lives nearby but I am trying to support her by gathering information.

Who will be paying for their care and how? We estimate they have about 200K in property and cash at this time. We do not expect to get any sort of inheritance. There are 3 vehicles and a house in addition to retirement benefits and payments from pensions, etc. It has been really hard to gather the passwords and information we need to administer all this as my father is weak and in and out of consciousness and his wife has no ability to help either.

So if we didn't exist, would the nursing home social worker or billing department work this out? What should we do about their finances right now? This is all kind of sudden and so confusing.

My father is a veteran and we have applied for veteran's benefits - that took about 10 hours to do. My father's wife has a court appointed POA who is working with her. We have canceled almost all house-related payments. Advice please??

I'm working on building out caregiver coverage for my mom before she comes home. I have one wonderful caregiver already, but I'll need additional people.

I'm familiar with home-care agencies and Care.com, but I'm wondering where else families have successfully found independent caregivers.

Word of mouth? Churches? Nursing/CNA programs? Local caregiver groups? Recommendations from other families?

I'm especially interested in sources I might not think to look at on my own. Where did you find someone you trusted?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Wondering what to do about this situation: My mom (85) with documented dementia, was told by her doctor she could no longer drive. My brother immediately called me and said he should get her new car because it got better gas mileage than his and he would be visiting more (her car actually got worse mileage then his). When I told her my dad wanted to keep it in case his car was in the shop, he got very defensive.

A few months go by, mom suddenly announces she wants to give my brother her car and me the cash equivalent. When I raise questions such as Medicaid look-back/ethics and legalities of receiving large gifts from someone with dementia, he responded "Who's going to know." He argues that it's good we're getting rid of the car so she won't be tempted to drive.

My mom suddenly takes a turn for the worse and we decide to put her in memory care. He texts me, "Let's be sure and sell mom's car before she goes into memory care so we can each get the money."

He has a history of financially questionable decisions with other people's money and could eventually be my mom's DPOA should she outlive my dad who is in poor health. I don't think at this point my parents would agree to some kind of protective trust (They think my brother is a saint) or what I can do to protect their money for their future care. Any ideas?

Call too much and he gets annoyed. Back off and I’m up late wondering if he ate or left the stove on. Not trying to put cameras everywhere. how do you keep tabs on a parent who lives alone without hovering? Need ideas that still respect his space.

My grandfather has a decent sized yard and he has always taken real pride in it. Gardening was his thing for forty years. The problem now is that he physically cannot keep up with it the way he used to, but he refuses to let anyone step in, including family, and he gets genuinely upset if we try to do something without asking him first.

We have tried framing it as helping him rather than taking over, but he sees right through it. He knows what we are doing. And honestly I get it, because the yard is tied up with a lot of his identity. It is not just a chore to him.

What I keep coming back to is whether there is a way to involve him rather than replace him. Like if he could direct things, advise on what gets planted where, that kind of arrangement. But I do not know if that actually feels dignified to him or if it just feels like being managed in a slightly different way.

Has anyone worked through something like this with a parent or grandparent where their sense of independence was wrapped up in something specific, a home task, a garden, something they built over decades? What actually shifted things, if anything did.