Touched by an Angel. My 93 year old mom lives in a residential situation and once a week her guardian angel visits her and takes her out and about.shopping, etc. She has been diagnosed with paranoia and maybe dementia by a psychiatrist who prescribed meds. She refuses to take them and is causing problems at the facililty about people coming into her apt. and stealing from her. She says they have a key. Actually, she is misplacing things - they have been found later. The management is threatening to evict her. We cannot convince her that nobody is coming in. She says we are all against her and don't believe her. How can we get her to take her meds and see if that helps her delusions?
Our family dealt with similar problems. Paranoia and misplaced items are a reality with their age and dementia symptoms. Also, there actually were other patients who came into apartments and took items. Those patients were not suited to the type of care being offered at the facilty. They wandered unmonitored until someone reported trouble.
As a routine, the staff came in at night with enough noise and flashlights to wake our family members. When you are wakened out of deep sleep, you do begin to wonder if someone is coming in to take things.
My sister, a home health registered nurse, asked the facility to provide more monitoring of its patients who wander, take things and cause trouble. We gave them 60 days to correct the problem. When they did not offer practical solutions we then decided to move our family member elsewhere. We were fortunate to have an alternative option.