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My 90-year-old mother fell in her senior apartment after taking bottles of aspirin and cold medicine. She had received a diagnosis of diabetes earlier in the week, and of macular degeneration the day before. She was well aware that my husband and I have actively been looking the past two weeks for an AL place for her closer to where we live, and was happy at the prospect of being only 15 minutes away instead of 60+. We did tell the ER doctor that she'd taken pills, and so of course they issued a 5150. We visited each of the four days that she was in the ER and Observation, and she was more lucid with each day (was hallucinating the first 24 hours or so), though when I asked (multiple times) if she remembered why she'd fallen, she seemed honestly puzzled. She did have a previous attempt some years ago, which at the time she told the doctors (clearly lying) was an accident.
My question is: Will the 5150 and/or suicide attempt prevent her from getting into the AL place we've chosen? This place also has memory care. We hadn't yet been able to get to her primary-care doctor to get the Form 602 physician's report that California requires for entry into AL, but the AL place said that they could get their doctor to do it. I will not lie to the AL if it comes to that, obviously, but I'm prepared to slide around mom's being a "high-risk" if needed, because I'm as sure as a person can be, I guess, that having the luxuries of AL, help with managing her diabetes and macular degeneration, and maybe even more importantly, the social interaction -- which she does not get much, living alone in a senior apartment -- will be an enormous boost to her spirits.
I am still playing phone tag with Social Services.
Have always thought that I'm a strong and capable person, but holy crap this is knocking me for a loop.

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Thank you, everyone -- even though the situation is still up in the air (not cleared by the psychiatrist to be released from the hospital yet) just having some advice is helpful to start seeing a way forward.
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Reply to CaliforniaPoppy
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Good point, JoAnn29. My mom isn't allowed to have even Pepto-Bismol in her room. (That was a relief to me; she used to chug it when she lived in her own home.)
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Reply to Rosered6
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The AL and MC will not allow her to have any kind of medication in her room, not even OTC. A medtech or nurse will give her the medication subscribed by the doctor. At Moms AL they ordered her presciptions and billed her insurance.
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Reply to JoAnn29
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I would frame this more as a medical episode with depression than a true suicide attempt. Mom has enough real diagnoses and age to make her both sad and confused sometimes. Sounds like you’ve done an admirable job finding her a good next place to live
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Reply to Daughterof1930
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If she was "happy at the prospect of being only 15 minutes away instead of 60+..." I'm confused as to why you are so certain she was suicidal? She didn't remember it and now doesn't seem to have those feelings... I am not at all experienced with suicidal family members, so forgive my questions out of my ignorance.

Seniors who are having memory or cognitive impairment can do what your Mom did and not because they're suicidal. If she's not saying it herself, so how can this be her diagnosis?

Was she on meds for any type of depression or anxiety prior to this incident? If not, will she be on them going forward? More info for context would be helpful, thanks.
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Reply to Geaton777
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CaliforniaPoppy May 6, 2026
We installed a camera in her apartment a while back to make sure she was taking her meds. We saw that she had fallen and called 911 for her, but didn't see the earlier video until after the fact. She had tried to take more pills after the aspirin but couldn't get the cap off the bottle. That morning, she had been writing a letter to her cousin, and the last thing she wrote was "And now I've got macular degeneration." She said later that she stopped writing the letter because it was all bad news. Lying about the previous "accidental" overdose (some years ago) makes me think that she knew at some level what she was doing this time, though the fact that it came on so quickly (going from unusually lucid and optimistic about the AL, to taking pills within the space of an hour or two) makes me wonder if it was really some kind of cognitive daze.
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My mom lives in a memory care assisted-living facility. Most residents come in and stay until they pass away. One person came and lived in the facility for several weeks after a suicide attempt. I don't know all the details, but I assume that the level of supervision, the size of the facility, and the locked doors were considered appropriate for the person. The person wanted to move to a "freer" facility and eventually did so.
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Reply to Rosered6
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My mom was involuntarily committed twice in the weeks before she was accepted into Memory Care. The director knew what was going on and still accepted her. She also brought in a therapist to see my mom. It has been a fantastic arrangement. She is less than 10 minutes from my home and they call me with any concerns between visits.
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Reply to JustAnon
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