My dad... again.

[unclebilly]

So my father has undiagnosed onset dementia. He is watching all of the remaining conspiracy videos on YouTube and is convinced that the CV is a hoax.

He has not curtailed his galavanting and refuses to accept that he is putting his 77 year old self at risk.

The latest is that he is trying to withdraw everything from the bank... how do you think that's going to work out?

He refuses to listen to reason. My brother has been staying with him and this has resulted in numerous fights and arguments between them. Given the current load on the medical system, it is probably impossible to get a psychiatric assessment done right now (I have tried to call with no success).

I'm afraid that he will get this thing, and he wont survive.

What can I do? what should I do?

[oldE]

Sorry to hear about this added worry in these times.
I think you are going to have to get him close and keep him close and safe. It will be a heartbreaking fight, but you are not only keeping him from contracting C-19, but are potentially keeping him from becoming a carrier.

Good luck.
Best
Les

[KFC911]

I'm afraid a whole bunch of seniors weren't taking this seriously until very recently.

Best to you and your dad....good luck!

[stealthn]

Sad to hear Scott, went through a long journey with my father on this. My brother (thank goodness) knew exactly what to do as his step father went through it to.

We were able to get my Dad diagnosed via his family doctor, and quickly got control of all his accounts, bills, etc. Luckily we were able to convince him to stop driving and quickly sold his car (yes money went into his account). My Dad was super stubborn about staying at his condo, but his sight and hearing were also going quickly. We setup Meals on Wheels and got weekly visit from a health provider. We also made sure he had his capsule of life in his fridge, spoke to Co-op about getting his meds converted to daily bubble packs and delivered weekly. We got the lifeline type thing setup on his phone and a necklace for falls (which he would forget to wear).

Once it got too bad we were able to convince him he need more daily help so we were able to get him into a nice home. His health kept going down so (he was a vet) were were able to get him moved to a VA facility.

It's a sad, sad journey, but I tried my best to do the best I could for the man that raised me and taught me how to be a man. good luck and God bless!

[Mark Henry]

This sucks at the best of times, call his GP likely they will set up a face time appointment with you and then with him. If that doesn't get things moving then try community care, health unit and/or even your MPP or MP.

[unclebilly]

I have set up the community care for him twice now and he has cancelled it both times. The last time, they were about to do the psych evaluation and he cancelled the whole works.

It totally sucks and I’m worried he is going to threaten someone at the bank over access to his funds, etc and that will get him into trouble. It’s all additional stress that nobody needs right now.

[MRM]

You may very well be able to limit the harm he does to himself by working with his paranoia and playing into his requests. I once took a call from someone who was supposed to be a potential client but who turned out to be very mentally ill. She had some sort of paranoia complex, conspiracies, radio implants, the whole nine yards. I had some experience with people like this when I was a prosecutor and the older lawyers in the office had given me some practical advice on handling them.

I tried to talk her down a bit and direct her energies in less destructive directions by acknowledging the basis for her paranoia and suggesting courses of action that she could believe would protect her while not being destructive. She actually responded well and ran around town doing eccentric but not dangerous tasks. Eventually her actual psychologist got in touch with me. I explained who I was and what I was doing. To my mild surprise, the doctor agreed and told me to keep doing it. SHe said that the only way to engage with someone who is irrational is to accept their irrationality and to work with them on that basis.

It makes sense. Think about it for a minute. You are not going to convince someone like that they are wrong. It's not a matter of explaining facts to the person or being more convincing or showing incontrovertible proof. None of that helps because the person is irrational. Appealing to an irrational person's rationality is counterproductive and wastes both time and energy. Arguing with him will just make it worse and he will cut you out of his life.

What you might try is taking your dad aside and tell him that you understand the scope of the conspiracy and you'll work with him to keep him safe. If he wants to withdraw all his money, see if he'll allow you to hold it, or get it into a safe deposit box or somewhere else that it will be safe and keep him satisfied.

Definitely contact a mental health professional and get advice on what you and the family can do to work with him. I seem to recall some old movie where one of the old relatives thought he was Teddy Roosevelt and kept charging through the scenes shouting "Bully!". The family treated him as though he was the retired president and all was well. It won't be that easy in real life, but we all have our own delusions and depend on others to accommodate us. It's all a matter of scale in a way.

[MRM]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

I have set up the community care for him twice now and he has cancelled it both times. The last time, they were about to do the psych evaluation and he cancelled the whole works.

It totally sucks and I’m worried he is going to threaten someone at the bank over access to his funds, etc and that will get him into trouble. It’s all additional stress that nobody needs right now.

Look at it from his perspective. His family is trying to take his money from him and is preparing to lock him up in a home. Would you voluntarily turn control of your money to a relative and sit quietly for a psych eval? Every step he takes toward community care seems to him to be a step closer to being incarcerated in whatever prison they send those who've tumbled to the conspiracy.

[1990C4S]

Can you buy private health care in Alberta? If so, you can just buy some access.

You can also go online and pay at getmaple.ca. Not ideal, better then nothing.

With the border closed you don't have many options.

Also, a referral will get you access to someone who is not in a field that's buried by the virus. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[Crowbob]

I began the secret process of moving my mother into my house (she was already in assisted living, running out of money, unable to walk and clearly in early dementia) and one week before the competency hearing to award me as her guardian she died.

That was the most stressful period of my life. There was helplessness, frustration, anger, guilt and fear.

I don't know how, but many, many people get through it usually involving lawyers, doctors, social workers and family teamwork (if you're lucky).

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by MRM

You may very well be able to limit the harm he does to himself by working with his paranoia and playing into his requests.

What you might try is taking your dad aside and tell him that you understand the scope of the conspiracy and you'll work with him to keep him safe. If he wants to withdraw all his money, see if he'll allow you to hold it, or get it into a safe deposit box or somewhere else that it will be safe and keep him satisfied.

Very good advice, also the rest of the post I deleted for brevity.

My wife's mother is absolutely gone with the cognizant wind...not pretty to watch and reasonable with certain drugs that quells her anger. She has not been diagnosed with dementia but she is looking for a parking spot.

What we do, have learned to do, is agree with her. Her latest issue is people at the Senior Living Community she resides in are stealing her jewelry.

They are not, of course, but we always agree to investigate after we listen to her...we agree to look into it tomorrow or the next day.

So much more. Your issue is he is getting constant reaffirmation from the media which we don't have to deal with.

That is my two cents worth...we have learned to deflect, not argue or try and convince her Mother that she is wrong. It works for us.

Best in this difficult circumstance.

[flatbutt]

Billy will the bank work with you to help prevent the loss of his savings?

[LEAKYSEALS951]

This reminds me of my dad, who, when he went downhill, had a lot of paranoia and conspiracy theories. This was compounded by his own stubbornness and general unawareness of his own situation.

I found confronting him only alienated myself. Sometimes I would play the "son" card with tough love. Big mistake. I lost. Trying to reason with unreasonable people, is by definition, a losing proposition. Working "with" his conspiracy theories seemed to get me further down the road, but still didn't always get as far as we needed to go, as quickly as we needed to get there.

For my dad, he was convinced the next store neighbor had stolen his boats, and he wanted me to call the police to testify. He was also convinced my friend had stolen his porsche 356- only problem being, my dad never owned a 356.

Interestingly, a girl who lived across the street (when we were growing up) had a father who was going through the same thing at the same time. Her dad was convinced owls were out to get him. This being way before the official diagnosis of dementia. She and her mom had to trick him into getting a doctor's evaluation.

MRM's idea of seeing if he'd let you be custodian is a good idea. I would try that if flatbutt's recommendation gets no results from the bank. With my own dad- It felt "shady" buying into the conspiracy theories to get his trust (at least for me), but document your actions, and do what is in his best interest.

Tough times. Hang in there.

[stealthn]

There is no easy solution here, and the pandemic sure doesn’t help.

With my Dad it was bargaining, you want to stay in your condo; you will get weekly nurses checking on you, you want to go shopping by yourself, here is a prepaid card that’s always filled. It allowed him to continue to have his freedoms, but with guidelines. It didn’t always work, but we did our best.

[wildthing]

Do you have POA or some other legal recourse? Might be best to look into that so that he can't make any bad decisions about his money, or worse, send it to some scammers.

[Sooner or later]

Been there. Done that. It is an impossible situation. It is like trying to reason with a 6 year old.

For some reason mom thought my two sisters were trying to steal the money but trusted me. We had a long time lawyer family friend who would bend the rules and draw up papers (power of attorney, etc) and I would slap them in front of mom and dad and they would sign them. Attorney would notorize them after the fact.

I had to start spending the night at their house because mom would wake up and leave the house in the middle of the night. I would sleep on the floor in front of her bedroom door. One night she spotted me on the floor and started yelling "CALL 911. CALL 911" and proceded to beat and claw the living crap out of me. They both ended up in nursing homes after that night. Mom lasted about 3 months. Dad hung on for about 6 years of hell.

I somehow can look back at it now and chuckle to myself at some of the chit they pulled.

Best of luck.

[wayner]

MRM make s some good points to be on dads team.

My sisters father in law had an interesting way of handling his wife. She would freak out in the apartment that they lived in. She had to leave and go home. He learned not to argue with her.

Instead he would just put on his coat and take her down the hall to the elevator, they'd go to the parking garage for a drive around the block and then come home to the apartment and all was well for the night.

It worked for quite a few years.

[JavaBrewer]

If you don't have a durable POA and medical directive start working that direction. It's only going to get worse from here. As many have stated you DON'T want to argue or appear to not take them seriously. IMO let him withdraw the money and move it somewhere where you have oversight. He won't know. The sooner you get cracking on this the better. BTDT, so frustrating and emotionally challenging for everyone. Best of luck.

Originally Posted by wildthing

Do you have POA or some other legal recourse? Might be best to look into that so that he can't make any bad decisions about his money, or worse, send it to some scammers.

Scammers...HFH. There is a huge industry setup to steal from seniors. Lowest of the low. My Mom was buying $500 gift cards weekly and sending the info on the phone to these scum. Likely totaling many $K before I caught wind of the situation. Had to change her phone number a couple of times and take away all the mail.

[Sooner or later]

Just to lighten the mood a little.

Before they hit the "home" dad had a kidney infection and was hospitalized. This was why I was sleeping in front of her door.

Every day I would take her to see dad in the hospital. One day after the visit we were walking through the hospital main entrance when mom says she wants to see dad. I told her that we had just visited him. Well, that was not the proper response. She got pissed off. Started yelling and hollowing. Everyone in the lobby is focused on me.

Mom then picks up here walker, points the legs toward me and charges like a crazed bull. I do a side step ole. She turns on a dime and charges again. Another ole and I avoid a goring. Dozens of eyes focused on us.

I promptly took her up to visit dad a second time.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by MRM

You may very well be able to limit the harm he does to himself by working with his paranoia and playing into his requests. .

^That is the best advice here.


Please take it easy in the meantime and get things right, if possible.
Your dad may just naturally be a stubborn old codger who just wants things right for himself.
Personality traits can be a separate thing from medical dementia.

A friend's father was a regular outdoorsman his whole life then suddenly surrounded by sheriffs in the boonies due to a family court order.
By lawyer sister Bad move intentionally. Lying on court documents. SNAFU.
The old man somehow escaped through the frozen swamps for a while.
But then he was caught and killed with an overdose of suppressive medical drugs in a lock-down 'hospital'.
(That qualifies as pure medical murder imo.)
Dementia might have not been involved to begin with it all.

Be warned:
There are many types of "dementia". You need a good diagnosis.

Alzheimer drugs has the opposite effect on Lewy Bodies dementia!

'Sundowners-Syndrome' is common to most types.
The body wants to sleep but the mind goes completely random and restless.
Expect random behavior at night.
Like taking a walk across town in the middle of winter.

1). Alzheimer's is a befuddled ten year downwards slope.
-vs-
2). Lewy Bodies is a five year roller coaster mix of paranoia and shakes.

My father had Lewy Bodies. The second most common.
Late night calls. Him grabbing posts thinking that the house will collapse any minute. Me having to sleep on his floor waiting for that floor creak when he will walk out and fall fall down the stairs at night. Or is he breathing too hard and the cpap machine not sealing right. It was too much.


My best advice at the moment is to make sure he has care.
And that care is competent and also relaxed.
"Physician heal thyself."