My mother is elderly and in poor health. She has neuropathy and has a great deal of difficulty getting around. She also has an alcohol problem. She lives alone in the home we grew up and and refuses to leave. She falls a lot and my siblings and I know that she needs care. Her mind is well. Is there a way we can allow her to stay home while hiring somebody to come in regularly to ensure she safe and to shop for her and to make sure she's taking her meds and getting around OK? I am not sure what our options are...
If alcoholism is suspected it is important that alcohol is not withdrawn abruptly, as that can be deadly.
My mother is almost 94 and has had bad neuropathy for at least the past 12 years. It's progressed (as neuropathy often does) to the point where she's gone from needing a cane to needing a walker to now being forced into a wheelchair full time. Before going into the wheelchair, the vertigo was SO horrific that I was taking her to an ENT constantly to administer the Epley maneuver. That would give her a couple of weeks of relief, then right back to bad vertigo she'd go. Vertigo can come about from neuropathy; being unaware of where you are in space; no feeling in the feet, bad eyesight & bad hearing = vertigo. She's fallen over 50x that we're aware of, while living in Assisted Living and now in Memory Care. I would be totally out of my mind by now had she been living alone instead of in managed care because my involvement with all of her neuropathy related issues ALONE has been staggering.
Wishing you the best of luck getting your mother to agree to some level of care here. If not, you may have to wait until a crisis occurs ie: she falls, breaks a hip or a femur, goes to rehab and then they refuse to release her back to independent living. At that point, she has NO other choice but to go into Assisted Living.