By proceeding, I agree that I understand the following disclosures:
I. How We Work in Washington. Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services. APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid. We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour. APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment. You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints. Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or
[email protected] to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights. APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.I agree that: A.I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information"). B.APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink. C.APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site. D.If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records. E.This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year. F.You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
*If I am consenting on behalf of someone else, I have the proper authorization to do so. By clicking Get My Results, you agree to our
Privacy Policy. You also consent to receive calls and texts, which may be autodialed, from us and our customer communities. Your consent is not a condition to using our service. Please visit our
Terms of Use. for information about our privacy practices.
That said, and as AndSoItGoes already wrote, it sounds like you are the only one who can make decisions for your mother that would end in her having a good death rather than the horrors that are currently unfolding, which will lead to a gruesome death.
I don't know how to get hospice for her without going to the hospital. But maybe someone else here does.
What is the goal we are pursuing here? What is the "good death", versus stroke or sepsis, that we're hoping for?
This is a real question. I'm trying to understand. Is the idea to treat the things that would cause immediate harm and suffering (worsening of UTI, stroke from high bp) in the hope that there will be a peaceful death-while-sleeping at some later date?
Now that modern medicine can treat so many things that used to kill, don't we need to think this through? By treating, we've already decided not to leave matters to a higher power or nature. So aren't we responsible for ensuring that we're not doing actual harm by dragging out the dying process?
To the extent that we have any respect left for mom's personhood, don't we have to honor her refusal of the medications?
Again, I don't know. These are not rhetorical questions. These are questions I'm wrestling with.
I do know that if my own mother developed dementia and refused blood pressure medication, I would honor that refusal. What would simplify the matter for me is that she has HATED blood pressure medication all along.
The UTI stuff I understand less well. My mom's culture came back positive for UTI the last time she was hospitalized but the doctor said they don't treat when patients (he perhaps meant patients my mom's age) are asymptomatic.
My own advance directive, which I hope is honored, says to administer absolutely no life-prolonging treatment if I reach the state described by the OP (though of course it expresses a hope for efforts to alleviate my suffering through the dying process).
She sounds like she needs 24 hour care and you are unable to provide that (understandably). Don’t let the hospital discharge her home.
Or call APS and get her evaluated and placed, but it sounds to me like she very well may have sepsis.
You should call the pharmacy to find out if the antibiotic (pill) can be split in half or crushed so that you can disguise it in some other food. Or see if there's a liquid form of it. In the end you can only do what she allows. One of the trickiest situations is trying to care for someone with advanced dementia who is still mobile and strong. She may need meds for agitation and this may bring her to a state where she might actually take the meds.
I'm so sorry you're in such a distressing situation. You are doing your best. Also take care of yourself.
Defecating/urinating/ on the floor to relieve herself doesn’t really sound like a very positive situation for either of you.
If you feel able to manage her care needs in terms of what is “wrong” in your mother’s care while continuing to accept her current toileting habits, and if you’ve had input and hopefully suggestions from any medical specialist(s) who are seeing her, how do you feel about assuming that responsibility on her behalf ?
Get a medical opinion from someone who knows her, then decide, based on that opinion, what she and you should be doing next.
Be sure you’re including some relief for yourself, every day, from this caregiving schedule.
Yes it’s wrong. She has dementia. She doesn’t realize the consequences of not treating UTI. Do YOU know the consequences? Bad UTI can lead to sepsis: a horrible, painful way to die.
You don’t have dementia. You decide. Not her.
“uses the floor all over the house”
Why are you letting her live like this? What would you want if the roles were reversed? You’re family. She won’t listen to you. She might listen to a hired in-home caregiver. She’ll listen also to caregivers in a facility.
“uses the floor all over the house”
Letting her live like this, sounds a lot like elder abuse/negligence.