r/eldercare

Hello! I am a realtor and I am trying to help a client and I'd love any advice you all have!

I have a client who is selling her mom’s manufactured home in a park. She bought it for 120k in 2022. Everything is like new. She cannot move into the nursing home until it sells and then she can use the money to pay for the nursing home until it runs out, then medicaid kicks in. As you all probably know, with medicaid, they cannot price the home too low or it will get flagged. I suggested getting the home appraised so we would have some evidence for how much the home is actually worth. But that didn't work out because it appraised for way too high! I’ve found that pricing manufactured homes as low as possible is the only real way to sell them quickly, otherwise, it seems like they tend to sit, sometimes for months and months. In this case, we can’t price it crazy low because we don’t want medicaid to get flagged. I listed the home for $79,900, tax records show its value at $62k, the appraisal came in at $98k. It’s been on the market for a week, and we have had zero showings.

Is there a process in which I can reduce the price if there is no interest at all? Can my seller use the evidence of no showings to fight against medicaid if they flag it for us selling too low?

I have sold medicaid manufactured homes before with medicaid in mind but they were 20+ years old, so the low price was justified. With a 2022 home, it is much harder to sell at a reduced price. Any information is welcome!! Thank you!

I'm not really even sure how to word this, my dad's in the hospital and he handles all of the bills and money and my mom doesn't know anything. Not how much or when or what is due. I'm a little concerned as to what steps need to be taken to get her access to bank accounts/ bills and how to pay them/ ect. I can help her but I also have zero information and access.Honestly I don't even know where to start, my mom can't even keep track of when oil changes are due in her car or pump her own gas for example. My dad is unable to speak more than a word or 2 and is having trouble thinking clearly because they have him on some pretty strong pain medications. Getting information from him is not likely going to happen atm.

Can anyone suggest a place to start? My dad's been in the hospital for the 3rd time in the last 10 days. I'm admittedly a little stressed and probably not thinking very clearly so I really appreciate anyone's input.. thanks ahead of time folks.

Thank you for reading this!

Hi Reddit. My sibling and I are in the position of caring for my father and his wife in their last years of life. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, within a couple months, my father's health worsened irreparably and his wife was admitted to long-term memory care. Meanwhile, they continue to pay bills, have a large home (that needs work!), etc. My wonderful sibling has been taking on the majority of the responsibility because she lives nearby but I am trying to support her by gathering information.

Who will be paying for their care and how? We estimate they have about 200K in property and cash at this time. We do not expect to get any sort of inheritance. There are 3 vehicles and a house in addition to retirement benefits and payments from pensions, etc. It has been really hard to gather the passwords and information we need to administer all this as my father is weak and in and out of consciousness and his wife has no ability to help either.

So if we didn't exist, would the nursing home social worker or billing department work this out? What should we do about their finances right now? This is all kind of sudden and so confusing.

My father is a veteran and we have applied for veteran's benefits - that took about 10 hours to do. My father's wife has a court appointed POA who is working with her. We have canceled almost all house-related payments. Advice please??

I had to put my dad in a nursing facility and I feel bad that I can’t get there as much as I’d like. Part of the reason I had to put him there was that I was his primary caregiver and I am disabled myself. So sometimes it’s only every other week. And I feel terrible. They have lots of activities and stuff but I still feel bad. He also can’t hear very well and my heart issues make taking loud difficult sometimes.

I did just approve and pay for hearing aids for him so I’m hoping that will help a bit. I did stop over without telling him the other week and he was sitting in the lobby like he was waiting. He stared at me for a minute and I said “hi, dad!” While I signed in and he got a big smile on his face.

I’m going this week but can’t until Friday because I have my own appointments and things and I’m still recovering from a concussion from a fall which is one of my disability symptoms.

I really wish I could go more. I guess because he has the beginnings of dementia I justify maybe he doesn’t realize it’s been a week or two sometimes. Of course my 2 useless younger brothers won’t go visit him. The only other ones who do is his bff from high school and my cousin when he comes in from the next state over for something else. But it’s exhausting worrying about this and myself all the time feeling guilty. But I’ll be no use if I don’t take care of myself too.

I ‘30F’ am struggling with how to help my medically fragile Grandfather. For background, in March of this year my grandfather ‘84M’ suffered a kidney episode that we thought would end up taking his life. At the start of that episode my grandmother ‘83F’ delayed his care by 3 days before taking him to the hospital and afterwards was frequently verbally abusive. She would say things like he was lazy when bed ridden and “faking it” when he could barley stay awake and was in pain. I personally witnessed her say these things and worse while severally intoxicated which I recorded. In May he fell and broke his hip, she delayed his care by two days before taking him to the hospital because according to her it “wasn’t that bad and he said he was fine” he couldn’t walk and ended up needing surgery to have his hip replaced …

The last straw for me was 2 weeks ago. On a whim she decided she wanted to travel from Alabama to Kansas to visit family. Instead of flying by herself, She made my grandfather drive them both, no thought to the fact he hasn’t driven anywhere in 7 months let alone cross country. Needless to say it was not a smart idea and my grandfather had a stroke. She delayed his care by 4 hours instead of taking him to the hospital or calling 911. He is currently in the hospital undergoing physical therapy and will likely be there for another month, so he is safe at this time. But she thinks he’s going to magically get better. He has feeling in his left side but is a long why to go before he can even do something like walk on his own, and to be honest it is unlikely that will happen. He’ll likely be in a wheelchair or have a walker of some kind. At this point with all that’s happened I’m convinced she is a threat to his health and whether consciously or subconsciously wants him dead. My mom is trying to help dictate his medical care as much as possible but I’m not sure how much that will help. I don’t know what to do, I’m heartbroken and so so angry.

Wondering what to do about this situation: My mom (85) with documented dementia, was told by her doctor she could no longer drive. My brother immediately called me and said he should get her new car because it got better gas mileage than his and he would be visiting more (her car actually got worse mileage then his). When I told her my dad wanted to keep it in case his car was in the shop, he got very defensive.

A few months go by, mom suddenly announces she wants to give my brother her car and me the cash equivalent. When I raise questions such as Medicaid look-back/ethics and legalities of receiving large gifts from someone with dementia, he responded "Who's going to know." He argues that it's good we're getting rid of the car so she won't be tempted to drive.

My mom suddenly takes a turn for the worse and we decide to put her in memory care. He texts me, "Let's be sure and sell mom's car before she goes into memory care so we can each get the money."

He has a history of financially questionable decisions with other people's money and could eventually be my mom's DPOA should she outlive my dad who is in poor health. I don't think at this point my parents would agree to some kind of protective trust (They think my brother is a saint) or what I can do to protect their money for their future care. Any ideas?

Call too much and he gets annoyed. Back off and I’m up late wondering if he ate or left the stove on. Not trying to put cameras everywhere. how do you keep tabs on a parent who lives alone without hovering? Need ideas that still respect his space.

I'll try to make this as concise as possible. My FIL has dementia and was being cared for at home by MIL, but my husband I had a lot of concerns and had been trying to encourage MIL to put FIL in memory care for about a year. He was frequently wandering and had become aggressive with MIL.

A month ago, FIL ran away from MIL and was missing overnight from 6 pm until 10:30 a.m. when he was found lying in their pasture by a search party. MIL did not call the authorities or let us or anyone know he was missing until 8:30 a.m. He was found very dehydrated and was hospitalized. DHS opened a case of dependent adult neglect against MIL, and basically she was given no choice but to place him in memory care for his safety. Due to state law (Iowa), she lost financial POA for FIL due to having a founded case of abuse/neglect against him. We also found out from the local sheriff that this was not the first time he had been missing overnight. She never told us because she didn't want to spend the money on nursing home care.

FIL is doing well in memory care, but now MIL is talking about taking him out overnight and eventually taking him back home to live. I talked to DHS, and apparently they have no preventative role and cannot legally prevent MIL from doing this, even with her founded case of dependent adult neglect. There has also been financial issues, with MIL using money from FIL's farm account (30k) to pay for a scam.

My husband and I are working with an attorney to go through the court process to get conservatorship and and guardianship of FIL. MIL does not have known dementia herself, and has always been a difficult person, but her recent actions have us convinced that she is unable to make the best decisions for FIL. Has anyone been through this process, particularly when the incapacitated parent does have a living spouse? I'm wondering how likely it is to go in our favor.

Hey Y'all,

I am looking for advice on my current situation. I (24M) am trying to navigate dealing with a sudden disablement that has hapened to my mother. My mother is pretty young (57) and lives on her own and stuff. She hasn't been in the best situation financially speaking for a long time at this point, but that is unrelated I mainly say that to say that I have been been helping her on and off with rent ocassionaly sense I was in high school. I also make this known to set the stage that there are no job benefits for her to be found / no income while she is injured.

About a month and a half ago she was getting up to go to the restroom in her apartment and fell. She is also a pretty big hoarder so this fall is not just a fall to the ground but seems to have been a pretty severe fall with her hitting multiple items in her apartment (different totes and stuff).

She was not able to move after having this fall and had to use siri to call someone in her apartment to help. Eventually they called 911 and she went to the hospital. The hospital closest to her is a private hospital, she has a insurance plan directly with the public hospital in the area (which is the better hospital regardless) which the private one doesn't accept of course, but they had to at lease treat and diagnoise her. She was there for about 4 days, where we ultimately found out this fall cause some pretty bad damage to her cervical spine. I'm an engineer not a doctor so if I get anything wrong please forgive me here, but basically what I understand is that as we get older our spines start to narrow in general, so we are more prone to damage and such.

This combined with the hard fall caused some brusing and compression on 2 parts of her cervical spine, which caused her to present with symptoms like reduced motor funcationality, not being able to walk well, not being able to write, etc... They said she would need a PCDF procedure, and apologized as they would do it there right then but the ER and Ortho / Neuro departments are disconnected and due to her insurance situation the surgical department would just reject her transfer.

At this time her situation was degraded, but still pretty manageable. She was walking around normally for the most part, a little bit of a gait and still couldn't really write / would drop things, but main issues were on her left side. I took back the car I got her as the doctor said she couldn't drive, and we scheduled an appointment to see her PCP that same week.

We make it to her PCP and her PCP is pretty concerned, recommends to go to the ER. We take her to the ER for the public hospital, she gets admitted and they confirm the same thing. By this point her symptoms were getting worse and the hospitial initally was not going to release her on her own.

Side note: For personal reasons and other items I won't go into, my mother and I's relationship is pretty strained. I have my only family to worry about and take care of and I am not comfortable with my mom living with me for example, so that was not and is still an option I am actively looking to avoid. I am also doing decently financially, but all of that is from my wife and I's current succes, no passed down money or anything and we are young so I don't have a war chest to really tap into, just cashflow.

She eventually got some funcationailty back with some PT and was able to be released on her own with a walker.

Now fast forward to this past week, I went to pick her up to take her to PT to find that her situation seems to have gotten a lot worse. She has fallen multiple more times, she can barely walk even with the walker and is having a really hard time grabbing things. I take her to PT and the PT doesn't do anything as he is concerned with the worsening of her symptoms, stating that these are signs of more compression and recommends going to the ER as the surgery she has scheduled is to far out.

That puts us to current day, she got admitted this weekend, and the doctors are currently trying to move up her schedule with it possibly being as soon as next week.

That is all background, I say that to give context for my real questions.

My understanding from all of the doctors is that this surgery is not actually a simple fix item (nor is any spine surgey as I understand). This will fuse her sping and decompress it, but there is no guarantee she gets functionaility back. They are optimistic but there is no guarantee. They are also saying she will need specific care and such after the surgery and will continue to need it until she (hopefully) recovers from the surgery and regains her abilities which they also say can take about a full year to really understand what is going on.

I have 2 sisters, both of which are more or less useless and don't want to help at all. I personally wouldn't be helping either if it weren't for the feeling of moral obligation. She wasn't a bad mom at all, we just ended up in some pretty situations in the later half of my youth and she was never able to really recover.

I don't really know where I have gone with this, kind of ranted / rambled into a tangent, but going to bring it home.

My wife and I currently have 2 houses. One of which we live in and another one being a rental duplex.

My wife and I decided that the best solution of items would be to move out of the house we currently live (it was always going to be another rental property, just a basic starter home) and buy another house that will also eventually be another rental. The house we currently live in has a ADU in the back that we actually use to rent out for money a few years ago and now just use as a home office. We are planning to allow for her to live there and rent out the front of the house to a family member (hopefully), if not just a normal person to offset the incurred cost. This is the most financially viable situation (that involves helping her) as we would lose to much money on the duplex. This situation roughly maths out to a net neutral before you include the help for stuff like groceeries and such. We found another house in the same neighborhood that will be a good rental property, we are going to move there for a few years while we pay down the other mortages and then save up for our actual home upgrade.

I guess I just want to understand or get peoples opinions on if that is a good idea or not? I don't feel like there is any good option in this situation right now, they all feel pretty bad, but I have choosen the option that feels the least financially affecting + least personally affecting. I obviously could have moved my mom into the studio with us still living here and that would be the least financially affecting, but it would also be way to emotionally affecting and don't want it to lead to issues in my marriage at all. Not worried about my wife, she is a sweetheart, but my mom and I truly have issues.

I am also curious if anyone has had anyone go through this surgery, what did they look like after coming out? I'm worried that if items don't go well and she doesn't get better the only next item would be something like assisted living, which feels insane because littlerally last month she was perfectly fine, a normal adult living on her own working and scraping by like usual.

anyways, if you made it this far and I didn't make to many typos I appreciate it, I might just be ranting but I'm also just curious for any feedback or insights into others situations if you have delt with something like this. Thank you!

My (38m) grandma (94) had a colectomy last year. It went pretty well and they didn't detect any spread at the time. We had multiple discussions about it and she said she didn't want to follow up with oncology because she'd rather just not know and not be worried.

Well we went to the ER yesterday because of urine retention and in the process of looking at her bladder and constipation, they saw likely signs that the cancer has returned to her colon.

I feel horribly guilty that I should have pushed more on oncology follow ups. We did discuss it several times and she has been to her primary care doctor (obviously) as well as other doctors since. She is pretty sharp overall but she keeps thinking she had bladder surgery a year ago instead of colon surgery, which makes me feel even more guilty for not pushing on it more.

Next few months are going to be difficult as well because my guess is she will now opt for treatment which is going to be brutal on a 94yo who had a stroke and colectomy within the last 18 months. Please tell me I'm not a huge steaming pile of shit for being lazy.

As brief as I can:
My mom died 3.5 years ago. My dad is 92. We have moved him 5 times since mom died including purchasing a home to live in with my brother then selling it I a few months as things didn’t work out. Currently he is in a local very nice AL community… his 3rd time there. We just moved him there after 2 years at another AL facility 45 min away that isn’t very nice and doesn’t have good care it good. But it was his childhood hometown.
Hie reasoning skills are gone. All cognitive tests show him as good because they don’t include reasoning skills.
He told me last week, just 3 weeks after moving him back close to us ( he wanted to move closer to us ) that he wants to go back to his childhood hometown facility again. He has health issues that besides the staff, we as family need to stay on top of as he won’t share these issues with us etc. He got by without showering at the other facility and due to his skins condition from diabetes he needs his skin ( body) washed at least twice a week. He’s manipulative and lies and is again very stubborn and gets mean when we try to do what’s best for him.
There are lots of other details and examples.
He told us that he would get an attorney to revoke us from POA etc if we don’t move him back.
We have told him that we won’t move him back to the hometown place again. He could live with us or at one other very nice facility in our city which he lived and worked in 50 plus years.
He won’t listen to the reasoning why.
I don’t know what to do except ignore him now which is sad. He’s called me 3 times yesterday and today saying I need to get the movers lined up and other mean things.
There’s no talking to him.
But I also have tried to help him be happy and I also don’t want him to be at a place he’s not cared for. Nor do we want to move him again.
He won’t talk to a counselor or similar.
Besides a tranquilizer ( I say this in jest) any suggestions? Please?

Hi,

I've seen similar posts but with a specific requirements so I haven't been able to get an answer.

I'm looking for a game to gift my granny who is 101 years old. She still is fully there but is physically limited with her finger and arm movements (she can't knit anymore or do intrecate things but can still write), she is mostly in bed or on her chair in her home with a small hospital table, on which she has a her meals on everyday, so, limited space and it needs to be easy to set up/break apart.

She was never into big complicated rules before reaching her big age, so I'd be looking for something rather simple, she loves dominos, crossword puzzles. Because she is still fully cognitive, I wouldnt get her something too "childlike"

any suggestions?

Someone please help a girl out.

My father is demented and my mother is obviously old that she can't be taking care of another elderly. I suggested to hire nurses to come in daily to help care for them but I was called useless instead?!

Wouldn't it be safer to have them being taken care of by trained staff rather than having two of them at home alone?! These people are telling me that I shouldn't leave my parents in the hands of these strangers!

Am I making the wrong choice? Do yall have any suggestions?

>

I’ve been starting to think more seriously about senior care for a family member, and honestly, I had no idea how confusing the cost side of it could be. I’m trying to get a better idea of what we might need to budget for before we actually need care. For those who have been through this, how did you figure out what senior care would actually cost?

Any advice would be really appreciated.

I am curious to know if anyone keeps notes or notebooks of all the people you talk to as part of your caregiving role. Such as, which social worker gave you what information? Who referred you to who? Which organization have you already talked to? What did the doctor say? Which medicine did the doctor change? Etc. I get so confused with all the information thrown at me to help my 90 year old mother. That causes me more stress than taking care of her, sometimes.