Father in Law has been hospitalized three times now in the past couple months and each time he is stabilized and behaves very well and gets released. However every assisted living/memory care he has been placed in, despite medication for his agitation, he gets violent and trashes his room, threatens staff and other patients and gets kicked out on his first day there. Every time. I don't think we have any options left. We already had to move him to a different state as our home state had no more places that would accept him. We cannot have him in our home as it would not be safe for ourselves and especially our children.
Feeling lost and unsure what to do or what comes next.
No need to repeat all the ‘violent criminal’ symptoms you have already set out, no need to say that insanity is not his ‘fault’. We all know that. No sense in trying over and over again to work out ‘why’, failing every time. The point is that our community deals with many such people in appropriate facilities, which are NOT mainstream aged care facilities. Many of them also have grieving families. Shift the focus.
If the current POA goes down to the probate court and files the papers to get removed as POA, they will do it. The the FIL becomes a ward of the state if no other family will take over.
Its time to allow the State to take over his care. They will place him and hopefully get him the care he needs.
You are mistaken. They can simply resign POA by going through APS and filing paperwork in the probate court.
No one needs a lawyer.
I know a few people who actually got themselves removed from being a POA by doing exactly this.
It's not that hard to get yourself removed as a POA. In fact, the easiest route to getting removed as a POA is to do it through the hospital while someone is admitted. Their social workers get that done fast.
It's not your problem to deal with. You have a home and kids. Don't get involved. Let the state handle him.
If they threaten you saying it's either you take him or he ends up on the streets... point him to the nearest bridge to sleep under. This is a dangerous and violent individual.
If your husband insists he lives at your home, move out that day with the kids and file for divorce.
He needs to be made a ward of the state asap.
Secondly, much is missing here.
The first thing we need to know is what is your father's diagnosis?
Is he mentally ill? They are releasing him as stable. That indicates mental illness, not dementia.
Is he diagnosed with FTD or other dementias notorious for violent acting out? If so the facilities are practicing unsafe discharges and should be reported to the state.
Thirdly, who is POA for this gentleman? Is there a conservator or guardian?
You say he is being thrown out of care. Where are they discharging him to? The streets?
I am going to assume this man is mentally ill. Because I cannot imagine three hospitalizations and discharges otherwise.
My suggestions, then, are the following.
Someone is being "called" to intervene or to be notified about these incidents of being kicked out of care. That person is either POA/guardian or not.
If there is NO POA/Guardian I would tell anyone NOT TO TAKE it on but to leave FIL in the hands of the state. A court will appoint a fiduciary and they with Social Services will manage this man. He will be placed and in a facility, if assessed as having dementia, that will medicate him to the level necessary. If he has mental illness he will be discharged when stable with medications he is unlikely to take, and will be followed by the police and social services of his statte.
There will not be a discharge if he is suffering from dementia. If he is mentally ill there may be a discharge.
I would disengage with this COMPLETELY. This man is either mentally ill or suffering dementia to the extent he represents to YOU and to our SOCIETY at large a clear and present danger.
I wish you the best. But you have no power in this. I would keep away from it. You didn't cause this and you cannot fix this and it has the power to destroy your family utterly.
His only diagnosis is "dementia" (no type specified)*EDIT, sorry it does say alzheimers dementia on one of his papers* and anxiety/depression. I strongly believe there is more going on, but keep getting the dementia as the only real answer.
He is not told he is being thrown out of care until he taken to the hospital each time. It is my understanding that assisted living facilities can do so and say they are not equipped to provide for his needs any longer. He does not qualify for a nursing home as he is very physically capable. He stays in the hospital until a new facility is found to take him. Lather, rinse, repeat.
When I say they say he is stable, they are meaning he is calm and able to handed off to a facility "safely." And he is. Until he gets there and flips out.
Apologies if I don't explain things entirely correctly...this is a whole new, incredibly stressful world and I am overwhelmed.
He has threatened to kill you. (apparently in a great deal of detail)
He has threatened to kill your family.
He has assaulted staff members, with improvised weapons.
He has threatened to kill himself.
That's an awful lot of violence.
In a person that didn't have dementia and or mental capacity issues - this wouldn't even be a thought for law enforcement, family members, social workers and medical professionals. He would immediately be put on a psychiatric hold.
So for those who are more in the know- is this a thing for those with dementia when their behavior is beyond what anyone can manage? Is there a more humane way to protect both the patient and those around them and keep them safe, while keeping them in a facility that is more locked down and with stronger medications that keeps them more leveled off like a psychiatric patient rather than just a memory care patient?
I am not trying to be insensitive at all. This sounds like a nightmare for DCorrelle and like their family is running out of options and I honestly don't know where families that get to this point turn to if their family member cannot be managed through the regular channels.
Do they offer the stronger medications in the memory care facilities? Are they allowed to keep them in the same "state" that a psychiatric facility would be allowed to keep their patients for their own safety if need be? Is this even something that is allowable within a patient's rights?
Again, I'm honestly not trying to be insensitive. I'm not a huge proponent of keeping patients constantly catatonic or numb all the time- but it sounds like DCorrelle's FIL needs something much stronger to calm him down and level him off enough to allow him to stay in a facility and I don't know what level of medications memory care facilities are actually allowed to administer to their patients before they need to be moved to psychiatric care.
I just need to know if this is going to be a neverending cycle of placements and getting kicked out or if there is even a place with the ability to handle this. They say they can, until they experience him...
Behaviour is usually communication - but with dementia, even if you can identify the issue, it doesn't mean the situation gets resolved eg Being prevented from leaving the Memory Care building is probably quite a common problem.
It seems medication to manage FIL's behaviour has not worked in the longer term.
I think it will take a combined effort between FIL's representative (Guardian/POA) his Medical Team & a Social Worker to locate another suitable accommodation option.
Then much the same questions for the facilities he has been chucked out of. Were they giving him the same drugs as the hospital? How quickly did he deteriorate (three times in a couple of months means it wasn’t instant). Did there seem to be any reason for him to go downhill?
Next, more details about how he is “violent and trashes his room, threatens staff and other patients”. In particular, what was the violence? What were the threats? Did he actually make physical contact with staff or other patients? Was he making demands, and if so what? Did the facility consider calling the police, rather than evicting him? And where did he go, if he didn’t go to your home? If it was to another facility, who found it for him?
If you are really running out of options, I’d suggest that the police do get called, and he goes into the law enforcement mental health system. But as you will be asked a lot of questions, I’d try to get answers to the points I’ve set out above.
I think he associates hospital somehow as temporary and then he can go home, so I don't know how but manages to keep it cool there so he can leave. But he can't go home and he doesn't understand that. His confusion is too great at times to be alone and he was self harming. His violence too great to be with us. He is divorced from his wife for physical and verbal violence towards her and before he was hospitalized/302d for the first time in the past few months he had turned his paranoia on me, began stalking like behaviors, threatened to kill me and had a plan to do it (which he told me through phone messages and then called my husband and walked him through the plan and told him to keep it a secret...). He then vaguely threatened he could just kill himself, my husband and our kids so they could be together forever without me. He confuses me with his ex wives at times as well. We used to have a good (enough) relationship.
As for the violence in assisted living memory care, he has punched staff members in the face. He has broken glass and held pieces of it up to threaten with. He has set off fire alarms. He picked up a table and threw it through a window. He took off his belt and used it as a whip. In other facilities police and ems were called, and took him to hospital and then we are told the facility cannot handle him and he is not welcome back. He stays in the hospital until a new place is found by a team of social worker (new one each time), a placement specialist (same one each time) and my husband.
His most recent I do not know many details about yet but he was placed in a group home setting with what seemed like more experienced staff who understood his needs/triggers. The plan was to keep him more sedated for a few days while he got used to the place and slowly taper off to see if they could as the hospital only had him on low doses for anxiety. All I know is, again, first day there, and he woke up from a nap, got angry and began trashing his room. My husband had to go back and take him to a hospital again. I am awaiting more details, all I got yesterday was his room was destroyed and he had injured himself as well in the process of raging. I don't think he is able to understand the consequences of his raging out but he does seem to sort of understand that when he does, his son comes to get him (or meet him at the hospital) so it's all okay.
We're exhausted and confused. He seems to both understand/has "logical answers" for his behavior AND not understand what he is doing and just is going downhill so fast.