Sister's son is interfering with her move to assisted living
My sister has moderate stage Alzheimer's. We have been supporting her in home with paid and unpaid (us) help for about 3 years now. We are older than her, in our 70s, and it's getting increasingly physically and emotionally draining. She tends to deny how much she needs help (as a long-term alcoholic, she tends to lie/make things up to avoid disagreeing with people), but when an opportunity came up for a nice apartment in a great assisted living facility, she agreed to apply.
Now her son is trying to guilt her into not moving. He has been dependent on her for the last 10 years, is also in denial about the severity of her illness, and insists that he is taking fine care of her, even though he spends all the time that he is in their house in his room. We manage her finances, monitor her health, and actually visit with her to chat, play games, etc. She is comfortable financially and does not need to sell her house to move, so he is not getting thrown out on the
street- although we hope to push him towards learning to be an adult, as he has no clue. I don't think he is solely motivated by wanted to continue his free ride - he has untreated mental health issues himself and I think is terrified of change. But absolutely unwilling to admit this.
If she backs out of the apartment, we don't know when another opportunity will come up. She is close to needing all-night care, but son refuses to let an overnight caregiver in the house. She is not really at the stage where we could declare her incompetent and we would prefer not to go that route. It is impossible to reason with her son ("he knows everything because he looks it up on the internet") so I think the best approachis to motivate her, but not sure how.
Has anyone faced a similar situation and has any approach worked for you?