She is recreating events, mixing up past events, lying and manipulating, she even became physical with me (pushed me 3x, forcefully). In all she is acting completely different from the person we knew. She refuses to get checked out and we do not have Power of Attorney (POA) what can we do to have her evaluated by a doctor? We are located in Wisconsin - if that helps advising us with local laws.
UTIs can cause this. Get her tested for that anyway you can.
Report to her doctor a change in mental status, followed by some brief synopses of situations that shes misunderstood.
Google Teepa Snow and watch some if her videos on handling folks with delusions.
Hugs & strength for the days ahead.
It sounds like the moral of the shower head story is "let's not contradict her."
But the problem with that moral is that if you just say "oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that, let's figure it out" there is a risk that you won't fool her for a second and instead you'll get it in the neck for treating her like a lunatic.
The increasingly bizarre arguments she's coming up with to back her original premise are just her flailing around trying to win. I doubt if she believes them, she certainly won't be concerned about their validity. It's as though she's in some kind of fight-or-flight mode when this happens, would you say?
I don't know if there are recognised techniques for getting through this. One visitor at a time? Or at least only one visitor who says anything? Saying nothing when it's an option. Do we have any psychiatric nurses on the forum, anyone???
- when her husband had cancer she sold her farm to her kids. She used the money from the sale to pay off debt her husband had accumulated while suffering from Alzheimer’s ( because cancer wasn’t enough). She now pays rent in the amount of the mortgage. In July she started questing how her kids own the farm (13 years after she sold them the farm). She insisted that she never sold her home - she would remember the closing. So I found the records from the closing and emailed them to her (with her signature). She then insisted she never received a check from the closing. It was an $80k check, most people would be expecting such a check and would surely contact the bank if they hadn’t received it (within 10 days, not 13 years later). I called the title company and after much digging they found the record of the check at my MILs bank and date it closed. My MIL spent the morning at the bank while they tried to find it. Turns out she opened a bank account just for that check and paid a ton of back debt from it till it was gone. So then she proceeded to ask me how much he still owed on the house and didn’t understand that her “rent” had barely made a dent in her mortgage debt. I had to explain how mortgages work and amortized scheduling (she has her masters, she’s a smart lady) - she had no idea what I was talking about and kept saying I was wrong and covering up for her kids who are cheating her. She doesn’t owe that much. So I sent her links to how mortgages and interest work and a copy of mortgage statement with loan balance and payment breakdowns on it. She was then deflated for a while until she started looking through the checks she made from the secret account she had forgotten about. She found a check she had made out to her daughter, so now she starts to blame all her past debt on her daughter and sent her a bill for $5000 in debt her daughter owes her. Forgetting/ignoring that when farm land was sold a few years after the closing, her kids gifted her the amount of sale totaling $15k. When I brought it up she insisted that the land sale happened when her husband was still alive and her kids never gave her that money. It was hers. I gave her daughter a copy of that closing with proof it happened 2 full years after she sold the farm to her kids. When confronted with this proof she’ll move on to something else. She is consistently trying to find reasons to fight with us/hate us.
this is so unlike the woman who drive to the airport to meet me, the first time my husband brought me to WI despite the fact we didn’t need a ride because my husband had rented a car. She said someone should welcome me to WI and she gave me a hug. I reminded her of that this last trip we had a nice moment for a few minutes.
I believe there is a better chance of action being taken.
I was afraid you might say that.
I should think MIL is terrified. Talk to SIL, see if the family can get in touch with her oncologist and report what's going on.
She didn’t sleep the night before. She was cranky from the moment I saw her. Her shower head had stopped working and she was blaming me for it. I tried to remind her she could still shower in her bathroom and or use the shower in secondary bathroom. She insisted her day was ruined and she wasn’t going to be able to leave her house again. She was too ugly to leave the house without washing and setting her hair. I told her I thought she always looks nice - she accused me of trying to trick her. During this I was keeping her daughter and son appraised through text (neither were home). Her daughter called (I didn’t know who she was talking to), and my MIL proceeded to claim that her day/no week was ruined, because her guests had ruined her shower, the same person had broken her laptop and it was unusable (flash player needed updating) and that I had tried to trick her into leaving her house ugly by telling her she’s beautiful. Her daughter reminded her that she had another working shower, that I had fixed her computer and it only needed an update.... On and on it went one exaggeration/lie after another. At one pint her daughter replies - “Mom, Chela told me about that and that’s not what you just described”. When MIL got off the phone, she started ranting, you made me out to be a liar. I was telling the truth and my daughter is using your words to contradict me - making me out to be a liar. Why are you calling me a liar. Being called a liar is worse than being called a rapist (my husband witnessed this exchange he’s still dumbfounded by the comment). I was trying to tell her that I never actually called her a liar and that I only had told them what was happening in real time and that it wasn’t my fault her version didn’t align with mine. While I was talking she was walking towards her room and I was following. That’s how I ended up standing in the doorway when she walked into her room.
What was that treatment for?
She had various surgeries during her 2 bouts with cancer.
My Mom is in denial and lies about her decline, too. Hoping they both get diagnosed.
[Can I have a prize for least helpful reply?!]
What is she being abusive to you and SIL (and your husband too?] about? Is it a particular theme, or does it seem as though her feelings about her closest family have changed radically but everything else is carrying on as normal?
In between the rants and the pushing, do you get to interact with her normally at all?
Has MIL said what she expects of any of you?
My Grandfather got agressive once (pushing & swinging fists). Relatives called, then emergency services. It was a PE (lung clot) lack of oxygen getting to the brain.
Is there a medical advice line like a nurse-on-call sort of thing to discuss symptoms?
If you are still long distance - try emailing or faxing her Doctor. Hopefully the Doctor could make own observations next visit, whenever that is. I haven't found this actually works (just goes in the file) but without the legal stuff it's really hard to talk to anyone.
since then she has made outrageous claims on phone. Latest one (while on phone with my husband) was that her Vet said her cat was dying because of an old carpet in her home and she didn’t have enough money to replace it but would instead pay to have carpet pulled up in living room ($250) and live on the floor boards. She called me t he following day and told me the same but elaborated that the Vet told her the old carpet could give her (MIL) pneumonia. I asked her to let me research it and get back to her with any other viable solutions. I then called her Vet and he seemed shocked that she had said those things. His words exactly were “she seemed so calm and reasonable in my office). He told me that the cat had a respiratory infection (that cat seemed to suffer from many of those). And she asked him if an old rug would affect that at all, and he told her that if the cat had allergies a rug could exacerbate the situation. But he confirmed with me that he never told her the carpet was the cause of her or the cats problems and he never told her to remove the carpet from her home.
The thing is, it could be almost *anything*. You noticed a marked change with quite a defined beginning to it, twelve months ago, and your MIL is on the young side, and she's still (as far as you could know) handling daily life all right.
And you're sure she hasn't been checked out without telling you? People can be quite secretive, especially if there's something going on they're afraid of.
Anyone local she's close to - friends, neighbours - who you could compare notes with?
Any other changes you've noticed?
Early on in her Alzheimer's journey, my 5', 100 lb, church-going, ex-kindergarten teacher mom would scream, shout, and throw things when she felt like she was being told what to do. She would apologize later, but the emotions were very real. She did not want to lose control of her "self."
I guess I'm not really answering your question, but legally I don't think there is much you can do unless and until your mom is declared incompetent (I hate that phrase). Even then, you can't just drag your MIL to see a doctor kicking and screaming. Try kindness and understanding first, even when she's yelling at you to leave her alone. I'm sure you already have, but really try to acknowledge and accept that she may be lashing out because she is scared. Let her know that you are scared too, but you'll be there for her no matter what. Then work on getting her to see the doctor.
Simple, right? No, it really isn't, but if your MIL is suffering from dementia, you're going to have to learn to constantly rebuild trust. Best to start now.
I wish you all the best!
Do anything you can to get her tested.