I am the daughter who is called daily by sobbing mother begging me to come and get her from AL. My brother is the POA and he won’t allow me to do that. He literally moved her from her condo to AL after he took her to lunch. Then he flew to another state to golf. He basically dumped her there. This is in Florida and 1,000 miles from any of her adult children. We want to transfer her North so she is surrounded with family. He vehemently will not allow this. POA is single man in his 50s. He has a lot of money so he had an emergency hearing to get her declared incompetent. Anyone who wants to see her now has to rent a car and stay in a hotel. It’s very far and she will never see anyone again. POA sold her car and put her condo on the market. All without telling us where she was. He blocked my number from her phone, so we couldn’t contact each other.
Can I go get her and take her to my house? I am care-giver certified.
What exactly are your mom’s health issues?
If your mother’s POA was done in Florida, within the laws of the state, you may hopefully be able to get information online about the functioning of the document in that state, and at least get a sense of what a designated PoA may be expected to do.
You are obviously estranged from one another as a family. Does ANY family member have a conversational relationship with your brother?
Some of the anger you may be feeling may be totally well intentioned but at the same time possibly misapplied. Most people are unwilling to enter care even when their own welfare is being compromised by their current lifestyle. Crying jags, loss of appetite, loud outbursts, and even “escape” attempts, terribly upsetting to loving family members, are not unusual.
In some cases (my most recent situation) it is necessary to use what may appear to others as subterfuge when making arrangements to transfer a LO to a setting that can provide a higher level of care. The “….took her out to lunch….” May even be suggested by the residence as the most peaceful way to remove her from her previous setting.
Having your mother “declared incompetent” may have been part of the directives in the POA, and hopefully was done by a competent professional with training in geriatric assessment. There may be a difference in Florida state law between “lucid” and “competent”.
Is anyone in your family willing to attempt to extend the Olive Branch to your brother with the ultimate goal of developing some contact with your mother? Anything is better than nothing.
The best possible situation for people who live in ANY residential care settings is to have plenty of contact with loving and concerned relatives. At this point, I’d try anything legal to provide that for your mother.
BEST of Luck! NO EASY ANSWERS in this one.
Your profile says she has AZL/dementia, anxiety and depression. If she isn't being treated for those issues then this is probably the reason why she's calling you in a distraught state. Most elders who go into a facility don't relish it. How long has she been in there? A person with dementia needs time to acclimate to new surroundings. It can take a few weeks, maybe longer -- especially if they aren't getting any meds for their anxiety.
Your brother is the person your Mom assigned when she was competent. Now you will have to live with it. Even though access to see her is challenging, she is being cared for. Unless you can prove that your brother is abusing his authority (like financially, for example) you will need to accept this situation. Is your brother her MPoA as well? If not, someone needs to pursue meds to help her, and you will need to resist feeding into her anxiety about "getting out". May you receive peace in your heart in these circumstances.
I recommend that you speak with her facility and find out how she is actually doing, because it takes 2 doctors to testify before the courts, with compelling evidence that she lacks the capacity to make her own decisions. Money doesn't come into play when someone's rights are being removed. It is a very serious matter and it is really hard to get a judge to take anyone's rights away.
The behavior you describe is so common when dealing with a broken brain. I suggest that you try not to engage in those conversations and try to ensure that she is in the proper level of care.
Best of luck, dementia just stinks through and through.
You will be able to visit her, but be warned that interference or threats to remove her from care may have you banned from visiting.
As he has funds for court actions, bro he will always win them, and guardianship fights now can quickly and easily go to 50,000 I hear.
If your mother now has a diagnosis of severe dementia, you can be assured she will have problems adjusting to in facility care. No one likes it. I don't know what your history of in home caregiving is, but it sounds you are not familiar with your Mom's condition. The last thing anyone could want here is for you to take on care in home and it be too much for you to handle.
You are likely to have better chance of hearing about mom's diagnosis from your brother by offering help, making visits, getting along with all siblings and providing visits to mom and supporting her in this way.
The way you have worded your message makes it clear you and brother don't get along. Most people would say "My brother was the chosen POA by Mom; a court has declared her incompetent and she was placed in care where she's very unhappy; none of us live in her area". Instead you threw us from this sad duty before a court to a happy golf game. I doubt that's how it went, though I don't doubt your bro plays golf.
Please, for the sake of your mother, who now is in care, try to reassure her, don't feed false hope, visit her, offer help to your brother in his POA duties. I am so sorry, but the way to get the honey (any information available) is to make friends with the bees (those in charge).
Do try to speak with the facility admins. Tell them you are out of town and when you speak with Mom she sounds so distraught. Ask them how her day goes when she is in the daily routine.
The rest of the siblings - if all in agreement - have to pick 1 to be their spokesperson and then each put $ to have this one go to FL for a week or so (Comfort Suites level) and then to meet with atty & visit other facilities (if change needed) during that time. Y’all do your attorney research in advance & meet with 2 or 3 during trip down to pick 1.
Guesstimate, $50K cash initially for all this and there will be continued costs for elder law representation. It’s going to be expensive as you’ll need ones that do litigation & they will hire experts to evaluate your mom. The 50 large would be for initial costs…. Like to secure representation and for your week/10 day stay. Imo You want a firm that mentions doing a forensic review on your bro.
Now’s a good time to do this as you can use visiting mom over the Holidays as a reason to come down to FL.
Please reread what ITRR posted as it’s mucho importante. This is why it will be costly. If brother had her ruled incompetent, then a judge would have to look at that ruling and determine if that Guardian (bro) should be removed and replaced by someone new and why it’s better. Your mom is legal resident of FL, I don’t think a judge is going to allow her to move out of State at this point in time. She’d stay under new guardian and then later on they petition for a move to another State under supervision of the Court of your State. And will be legal cost for that in your State to be done.,
I'm not saying your brother is a saint, but it's quite possible he's acting in MOM'S best interest here. Trying to take care of an elder with dementia at home is not the cakewalk many seem to think it is. It often becomes impossible for even the strongest amongst us.
You have been given good advice about your rights here, or lack of rights. Go visit mom and see for yourself what's going on, but not in one short visit.
Best of luck.
What you describe isn't uncommon when a person has dementia and no longer has the ability or judgement to care for themselves. Her home and car would be sold to fund her care in the AL. Not unusual at all. Because people with dementia may not recognize that they have dementia, they may need to be moved to a safer level of care by the use of subterfuge, like getting them out of the house for a lunch, and making the move.
Did he have a guardianship hearing for her?
Was he the person she had named as her documented POA? Is there an actual POA somewhere that contests his authority?
Outside of that - I want to caution you. Do you know anything at all about your mother's mental health? If there was ANY legitimacy at all as to how your mother was declared incompetent - I'm guessing that it is possible she has dementia. And if she does - you may be setting yourself up on the wrong side of things here a bit.
My FIL has moderate dementia. Along with a whole list of other comorbidities. Earlier this year we had to make the hard decision to move him to a SNF. He was NOT happy but he agreed to it. We chose a very nice place. But he has not acclimated. Instead he chose to sit in his room and commiserate with his sister on his cell phone every day. Literally EVERY SINGLE DAY. Calling her every day telling her that we abandoned him, that they don't feed him, take care of him, never answer when he pushes his call button, when he screams out for help, that he waits HOURS for help. She falls for every single word of it.
It didn't matter that we told her that he had dementia. It didn't matter that we told her that every call was logged. It didn't matter that we told her about our own surprise visits. Or about hearing things on the phone when he accidentally called us. She only listened to him. And she decided WE weren't doing enough to help him and she decided that she was going to be his avenging angel and started doing things that she thought were helpful.
Spoiler alert: They weren't. Because these things were not happening.
The reality of dementia is that the things they share - they are their reality. But they aren't REALITY. They do believe what they tell you. But they aren't real. And you can't see or know that from a phone call. You can't possibly KNOW that when she is sobbing 1,000 miles away.
It's hard. But if she does have dementia you are going to either have to let your POA brother do his job. OR you are going to have to get in the rental car and get the hotel room and go see for yourself. And no quick little visit for a couple of hours is going to do it. You will have to visit at different times of the day and night, over multiple days to get a good understanding of what is happening. You will have to call and talk to her while you are there, and then also visit to see if you see differences. You will need to take notes of the facility and the way it operates and REALLY understand what it is. And you will need to understand that if you aren't cleared to have information about your mother in their files - they can't tell you anything.
But there is genuinely no good answer here unless you see for yourself what is happening. And you can't go in like a bull in a china shop. You have to do your due diligence and get the full story. If your heartstrings are pulled, you may have blinders on. You need to take them off and take it slow.
Certification for caregivers varies in different states.
These are the following types of caregiver I am familiar with.
1) Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). Their duties include hands-on care. Such things as bathing, feeding, incontinence care, transferring, and sometimes medication administration (with specialty trianing). Some states require an RN supervisor (mine does) which is a total waste of money. I have never known an RN who ever supervised or provided support to a CNA on a homecare case.
2) Homemaker/Companion (HM/C). They do not touch the client. No hands-on care. They are basically an entire household of domestic servants rolled into one employee. They cook, clean, run errands, drive the client around, accompany them places, and babysit clients with dementia or some condition where they cannot be left unsupervised.
3) Home/Health Aide (HHA). They have certification (in some states). Their job is the same as homemaker/companion only they also have to do hands-on care
4) Personal Care Attendant (PCA). Same as a CNA only less money.
Some states require specialty training with certification and some don't.
If they move her without his written approval, it will be a felony, kidnapping.
You are not helping by posting these types of erroneous statements.
Take what your mom with dementia reports with a grain of salt.
You could try to fight in court to have him removed but you would have to prove that your mother is being neglected, abused, is living in an unsafe environment, is not receiving adequate health care, and her finances are being abused. Pick one or several because to get him legally removed you will have to prove that he is not duting his duty as her POA. It can also be a very expensive process with no guarantee that the court will decide in your favor.
I have 25 years of experience doing care for elderly people. I can tell you that many times I have personally seen and heard seniors who were well cared for and content in their day to day lives, turn on a dime and start crying abuse and begging to go home when one of their adult kids shows up.
Or when one of them calls. Or when they get a bee in their bonnet for no reason at all will turn on the once "favorite" child and then crown a different sibling the "golden child". So please keep this in mind. You are taking the word of a hysterical elderly person with dementia who cries and begs to go home. Your mother may be very happy in her AL like many are.
It would be in the best interests of everyone to go and have a face to face sit-down talk with your brother. You might be very surprised by what he tells you. If you want to even be able to visit your mother you will have to be on reasonable terms with your brother. He can put the brakes on the visits any time you know.
Talk to your brother and then listen. Really listen to what he has to say. I'm sure you will both be able to come to terms that will be what's best for your mother and the family. Leave emotion and past hard feelings, grudges, and the past out of it. I'm sure it will work out. Good luck to you and your family.
The situation with mom would have to be dire for a judge to take away her rights, which is the only way she could be forced to move. POA doesn't give anyone the authority to place someone in managed care against their will. I think brother dealt with this exactly like we often tell people to do. Take them to lunch and then to their new home, go no contact for a period of time, this allows the senior to adjust, and tell the univolved, distant relatives to go pound sand if they haven't stepped up to help.
To much finger pointing and mention of money brother has and now we have to rent a car and hotel to visit for me to think this story is all it has been represented to be.
Mom lived in FL by choice, she got old and now has a broken brain, moving her to Michigan doesn't sound like the cleverest of solutions, IMO. She won't be happy anywhere because she is no longer mentally capable of adjusting to reality, sad but common.
This is so hard to answer without knowing the basics items. To say your brother had and emergency order to find your Mother incompetent and is now POA is hard to fathom. Emergency orders would only be temporary until your Mother had two license doctors that specialize in the field that verifies she has Dementia and should not be left alone. Now to make it permanent your brother or you or another family member could petition the court for conservatorship. They would have to notify all family members and depending on your Moms competent she will also have a voice. The judge will hear the case and have the court make the decision. If your family is fighting about money then have a fiduciary private party handle finance. You all have to keep in perspective that it's all about your mother and leave all the personnel disagreements not in front of her. Let her finally years be as peaceful as possible.
I know all of her doctors from taking her to easily over 100 appointments. Ranging from a peridontist to the dermatologist. Not to mention the hair, tonenail cuttings, and shopping for her clothes. I also have been sending her groceries via inastacart for at least 3 years. We try to bunch them into when I'll be there. My brother has never met one of her doctors or stayed in FL for over 48 hours...and that is once a year.
I'm still missing a lot details that are not auspicious on his part. He makes unilateral decisions (which he has the power to do) and doesn't report back to the rest of us.
My brother was the POA prior to the final hearing, where he was designated the Durable POA as opposed to being given guardianship. The least restrictive possibilty. At that same hearing, my mother was declared incapacitated based on the findings of 2 doctors and a lawyer interview. I was blocked from my mother's phone the day of the first hearing. (my mom's phone is registered under my sister's account, so she has the records) lMy sister arrived the next day from CT and unblocked me. My siblings all live in Connecticut. All my sister and I want (as well as all relatives aside from my brothers) is for my mom to be moved to CT either to stay with my sister, a certified caregiver, or live in an AL facility very close to her home, where her daughter works. My brothers want to "remotely control" her from CT. Florida is simply too far if something happens.
In CT we can check in with her (no matter her condition). She is at the beginning of this decline; she is still very very lucid.
Mollymullee/Orangelover,
It's obvious you love your mother very much and want the best for her. I can understand wanting to be near her. I can't weigh in on any further specifics (catching a flight now) but hopefully the very knowledgeable people on this forum can help you to sort through this and make recommendations.
I offer you a virtual hug and my prayers that everything will get straightened out for the best.
Best of luck for your dear mom, because it is obviously going to be a mess with all the denial, finger pointing and other stuff going on in your family.
My FIL had been through a cycle of hospital/rehab/home over the course of about 4 months. Each one of those was considered a move or location change. And then the final change was to the SNF. So basically between 11/30 and 3/30 he had physically been moved or changed his "primary" location a total of 10 times - the last being the move to the SNF. As a result - he was mentally pretty weak and somewhat confused. They say that ANY TIME you move a truly elderly person - particularly one that is in a weakened mental state - you are compounding that weakened mental state and adding to their confusion. ESPECIALLY if you are taking them away from what they are used to and moving them somewhere new.
Even if your mother is unhappy where she is - it IS what she is currently used to. So let's say that you are able to move her - long shot - but let's just say you are- you need to be fully prepared because it's not likely to be the easy slam dunk you think it will be. If you are expecting a happy family reunion when you get her back with family, and for mom to be so grateful to you and sis and to be over the moon happy to be moved - you might be in for a shock. She might not react the way you expect. Because people with compromised and weakened mental capacity never react the way we expect them to. They are completely unpredictable. And she isn't happy now. But she may not be happy when you move her either.
And you may just be swapping one bad situation for another bad situation.
You REALLY need to know what the REALITY is before you start down this road. DO NOT make any giant leaps in logic with you emotions without really understanding what your mother's TRUE mental state is. It is imperative that you stop, regroup, and do your research before you make another move. Because if you do manage to get permission to move her - you could quite literally be opening a can of worms that you are not prepared to deal with.
And believe me - EVERYONE thinks they are prepared. Until they aren't. And then...it's almost always too late and EVERYTHING is crisis mode at that point. Don't do that to yourself. Slow down and take the steps to find out what is really happening.
Find a way for you & your brother to communicate & listen to each other's point of view.
Opinions can vary. What may look hard-hearted, may be a practical solution. What may look like love or duty may be wishful thinking.
The care solution for your Mother will be best without the extremes of hard hearts or wishful thinking.
Just good regular hearts & good thinking brains.
I would give this up and try to make solid friends with brother.
Understand that your mother would likely be no happier in her care near you than currently she is. She has dementia. Her personality traits are now as a result of that disease.
I am so sorry.
Yes, it's far from Michigan to Florida, but you can get in a car and go there. People do it all the time. Sometimes the ALs have onsite hotel rooms for visitors, but they're usually reserved far in advance. If mom has an apartment, maybe you can stay in it with her. My mom and her friends at AL all had two bedrooms and often had visitors (I was one). Another friend in a different AL had a studio apartment with a queen size bed and a pull-out couch in the living area. These ALs were both in Florida.
Go visit and then form your opinions. She's probably worse off mentally than you think. But if you kidnap her, beware. Laws about taking a person who has been declared incompetent and transporting them over state lines could have dire consequences. Check it out by starting with Florida State Statutes: Title XLVI CRIMES. Chapter 787 KIDNAPPING; CUSTODY OFFENSES; HUMAN TRAFFICKING; AND RELATED OFFENSES. SECTION 03 Interference with custody.