What to do about elderly relative re: safety concerns.

[NorthernRedneck]

So we're dealing with a situation. My wife has 3 children from a previous marriage. Both my wife and I are close to her former in-laws. They are still the kids grandparents. They have one estranged son (my wife's ex) who hasn't seen or spoken to them in 7 months despite living in the same community.

She is in her late 70s and going downhill rather quickly with alzheimers. He is a rather simple man who is on the eccentric side. We just found out that he has fallen down the stairs at home recently and couldn't get up. She doesn't know what to do in that situation given her situation.

How can we help when we don't really have any legal genetic ties to them other than the 3 grandchildren?

 

[NorthernRedneck]

We've been discussing this eventuality for years now and it's finally come to a head. We've got no idea what to do as it's not hers or my relative. We have been in discussions with a sibling of his on the opposite side of the province keeping her updated as she doesn't see the daily regression and struggles.

 

[pirate_girl]

He needs placement before he hurts himself.
Anyway you can pull it off.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

We're looking into a local community care group for adult advocacy that provides a bunch of different services for seniors. She's the one going downhill fast. He's just being patient and trying to do everything himself for her. We've offered to help.

 

[pirate_girl]

We're looking into a local community care group for adult advocacy that provides a bunch of different services for seniors. She's the one going downhill fast. He's just being patient and trying to do everything himself for her. We've offered to help.

I'm sorry, I misread that.
If I were you, I'd definitely look into home health visitation, twice per day if possible.
They can help with making sure their house is kept clean, they can help them with bathing and errands.
And if you have anything like "meals on wheels", that will help too.
Good luck.

 

[tommu56]

We're looking into a local community care group for adult advocacy that provides a bunch of different services for seniors. She's the one going downhill fast. He's just being patient and trying to do everything himself for her. We've offered to help.

Id also suggest if he wants to do it himself try and give him a brake watch her while he go's shopping or some other thing to get him out of the house
or short vacation has a weekend with his buddies fishing or hunting
that's what we did with a neighbor till she passed the whole neighborhood worked with him it only took one day a month because if the people in the neighbor hood and family not we started before she was in her decline so she bonded with us easier

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Fast forward a few months and she is still on a waiting list for ling term care. He hasn’t been willing to accept any help until now. It's been difficult to have a talk with him as whenever we see them she will not let him out of her sight and has started making threats against him.

We had them over for dinner last night. Wow. Her memory has mostly gone. She refuses to attend any medical appointments. At one point she called her husband a different name and burst into tears. She has one sibling living 17hrs away and is also going through cancer treatments. She hasn't had any contact with her son, my wife's ex. So we're it as far as local family support

 

[Melensdad]

Is there no way to get a doctor's order to accelerate the admission process to long term care?

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Possibly if we could get her to go to an appointment. Unfortunately until she agrees to go, there's not much we can do. But we are in contact with her brother and they are doing what they can as well from their end.

 

[FrancSevin]

Crumpy says "Hide the alcohol."

 

[NorthernRedneck]

We're making some progress and it's a sad state of affairs over at their house these days. He had been trying to do everything himself and was leaving her unattended for periods of time while he went out. She has "escaped" the house and was found wandering aimlessly by the neighbors. They live along a country route about 40 minute drive from us. We had them over at Easter and offered to assist when he has appointments. He finally accepted. My wife was in the home today with her. Sad. Without getting into details, she is now in communication with the long term and we are "in the know". And can speak freely with the proper agencies to get her bumped up the list for care as he is unable to properly care. He's at the point of dropping her off at the hospital and abandoning her there. It's sad. We're doing what we can seeing as it's my wife's ex husband's parents We're talking about. He's a useless Walmart lifer employee of the year and hasn't paid any attention to his own parents who live 20 minutes from him. My wife had 3 kids with him. He used covid as his excuse to stop seeing the kids altogether and I've been raising them as my own for 13 years. So it's either we step up for our children's grandparents regardless of their pos son, or they sadly wither away alone with no family support of any kind.