My 92 yr old MIL is living alone in NY now. We live in Fl. She recently fell and now has phys therapist, nurse, social work and personal care aide. Although she's improving, their observances and tests have determined that she should not live alone. What do we need to do to determine our options for future care? How do we decide if her moving to Florida to live with us is the right thing to do? My husband and I both work 30 plus hours per week.
For us, I, as DPOA for my mom forced her to move from her home of 50 years into IL in 2007. No, it wasn't pretty but she had refused to even consider moving to my state in the 10 years before (even after visiting several and signing up for an senior community apt) and had done two last minute refusing to sell her house and move into IL anywhere. The last straw was driving in for a surprise visit in 2007, she was 90, and upon opening the door we got hit with gas fumes as the stovetop was on unlit for hours.She was sitting in her room, watching TV and unaware. And it was the stove's fault. When we went to open 1 of the 2 back doors to get the gas smell out, we couldn't as the awning had fallen blocking part of the door and the key was broken in the lock - again not her fault as someone had tried to break in and did it. From that point on she had as far as I was concerned no say in the decision making. I placed her on a couple of IL waiting lists that afternoon and arranged for home health to come in several times a week till there was an opening. Took a couple of months.
She likely has Lewy Body Dementia - so she appears to be highly functional and great at ADL's. We were lucky in that because of that she was able to get into a very good & highly supervised IL and was there for a couple of years, did well, participated in activities and could afford it. She had a fall in her apt, refused to use the pull chain to ask for help (yep, refusal is her middle name) and then felt bas for weeks, not eating much. Had a more than 10% weight loss so she went from IL to NH (on Medicaid). She still owns her home.
On retrospect, I would have forced her to sell the house years & years ago. As it would have given her more flexibility in where and how to live. If you wait till they need a NH and they have a home, then they are stuck in that state in order to be covered by Medicaid. So if you move your mom to FL, then her home in NY will no longer be considered a homestead, so likely will have to be sold unless you can rent it for enough to pay for property management and all the expenses on a non over 65 exemptions piece of real estate. One of the experts on this site is a FL based elder care attorney - perhaps talk with him about your options on if you move her to FL.
Not everybody is good at being a elderly caregiver, I know that neither myself or my DH would be good at it nor could we provide the level of services and socialization that our mom's got/get at their AL/NH. Good luck!