Hello,
I’m one of 5 children. My mother who is 90 was recently sent to a rehab facility where they are saying she’s most likely going to have to move into a nursing facility. My brother has power of attorney and will not tell the rest of us what’s going on with mom. Is he planning on selling her house? What are the social workers, nurses, etc saying about her condition? She has an extreme bedsore on her tailbone. Have they given him an update on her care? He won’t answer texts, emails, calls. If we try to help or find out anything we’re told the power of attorney has to approve it. Help! He’s put her in a facility that is close to his house but a long way for the rest of us. Any suggestions, advice, experience would be great. I’m worried about my mom.
Answered Nov 2014
Is there such a thing as post traumatic stress syndrome for caregivers?
Yes, yes, yes, PTSD is very real for caregivers. PTSD is not a term given just to returning veterans, it's for everyone. I left an abusive marriage and was diagnosed with it. I was laid off from my job and had to move back home to live with my 86 year old mother who has never liked me. I struggle every day to continue to look for a job, while juggling caregiving too. I have 3 siblings in town that do nothing. If I ask for help they all get mad and tell me I have to move out, even though they know full well I have no place to go. Their desire is to pack mom off to an assisted living facility and let her sit there alone until she passes. Shocks me that they don't even bother to stop by and say hello to her when they're 5 minutes away. I have seen the truth in my family that is ugly and so selfish it defies logic. I don't think any caregiver comes out of it without some form of stress-related issues. Sad, but true......
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Bamboo, I hope you're hearing more now about how your mother is getting on. Please update us when you can.
I hope Bamboo is able to get the information she needs soon.
Tell your brother you care about both your mom and him. He may feel too busy to provide updates. However, your mom could put you on the Hippa form and the nursing home would give you access to talk with the home.
If mom has been declared incompetent yu might need your brother’s approval.
My husband tells his siblings nothing because he feels they don’t care. I am not accusing you of this but it’s where he is coming from. They have not once asked how they can help. My sil visits once a year and tells me how sad she is that we dress he mom in pull up pants. She was a clothes horse. I dress her like this because it is easier to clean up the poopy messes. This lovely daughter also called parents bank and told them her mother was still congnizant and her brother had no business moving any money. This was while her father was dying in hospice. She was four hours away and did not bother to come in till her Dad passed. My husband has not even called the bank and told them he was too busy watching his father due to think of moving money. Seven years later, we still have not moved the money. His brother has informed us he is not her caregiver nor our respite. He lives 20 minutes away and does not visit.
Sorry for venting.
Get you an elder attorney now!
If necessary get the state adult protection or DHS involved.
Not a good situation here.
Maybe it's the way the questions were asked? Maybe another reason, who knows?
I was POA and Exect. for mom.
All the sisters had to do was ask and we would give the true answer.
Her sisters did things that bordered on meanness then spread lies about my wife and I.
Who wants to cooperate with that.
Anyway there is another side to the OP's story.
And as others have said, visit mom... if she's alert enough to understand, maybe find a way to explain that your brother isn't passing on news about her to the rest of you. Perhaps there is something that she can sign at the NH giving them permission to give you status updates, even though you are not POA.
It is actually POA's responsibility to keep health information private. Is mom competent? If so, she could sign a HIPPA release for anyone that she desires.
Mom, if competent, could reassign POA if she wishes to do so.
If he's the POA, then of course he placed her close to him. That just makes sense. There's got to be something else going on here if one sibling refuses to provide information to the others.
What do you think the problem is?
At 90 every crisis could be the last, you need to react in a way you can live with in the future if things go badly. IMO somebody needs to get boots on the ground to support your mother as see with their own eyes what is happening, if she is coherent she can give permission for them/you to be informed.
I think you're getting sent off on a tangent by your anger with your brother. His behaviour isn't the issue, it would be better to concentrate on how you want to participate in supporting your mother and the rest of the family and just leave your brother to his own devices.
From our point of view, it would be baffling and upsetting if a child who was sufficiently close to his mother for her to have selected him specifically for power of attorney then turned out to be callously indifferent to her with no reason behind it at all. But we, of course, have absolutely no idea what's going on in his life. For all we know, he has a sick child at home, his company is in the midst of a corporate takeover, he is plain burned out with caregiving, or... he's got no problem with taking responsibility for his mother, he just can't stand his sisters and bitterly resents every question and every second he spends on communicating with them.
Whatever: your mother is dangerously ill, somebody ought to be with her, who is going volunteer? If your sister isn't already there, can you make the journey?
Another update post, below, says ambulance called for her and she was sent to ER. The info was relayed to a sister from brother. It goes on to say, he did not plan to meet the ambulance at the hospital and this info has Bamboo upset that no one is with the mother. If mom had to go via ambulance, it's time to stop putting all of the blame on brother for info you lack and go get first hand details - it's time to visit your mom.
Surely there is some unknown history with the current events.
I'm sorry your mother is ill and you find your brother's methods of exercising the POA your mother chose to give him so emotionally unsatisfying. Vent here but please get a hold of yourself and do not vent your anger toward your brother. Angry criticism is likely to push your brother farther away. Who wants to call someone just to get chewed out?
Sounds like your brother is communicating to your sister; how else would she know he doesn't plan on coming to the hospital? Is your brother also the one who told your sister Mom is on her way to the hospital? If your brother did agree to add you to the HIPPA list and you had information about your mother, are you going to angularly criticize every decision he makes?
As a practical matter, your mother's ER admission is going to be a lot of tests and assessments for at least the first few hours. He really doesn't need to be there for decision making and he called your sister so she can be there to support Mom emotionally? Your profile doesn't mention any dementia, but for your brother to be making the decisions there must be some reason Mom cannot make her own decisions. I know this is a really difficult time and the lack of information only makes it harder, but I still encourage you to consider how your approach to your brother dictates much of his response.
i received a text from my sister a few minutes ago saying mom is very sick and the ambulance is at the rehab facility to take her to the emergency room at the closest hospital. I asked if my brother was with her as he will most likely have to make decisions for her tonight. She’s been sick all day and her BP is rapidly declining. My sister wrote back and said he he’s not with her and has no plans to meet the ambulance at the hospital. He told them to call if something needed to be done. Are you kidding me? If given the authority and being designated as power of attorney I believe it is his responsibility to be there in an emergency situation. That’s what he agreed to do. He is responsible for her DNR.
So once again the rest of us are helpless as everything has to be agreed upon by him.
Moms finances were never questioned by my brothers. I never gave them info. Medical wise, I don't feel Mom would have liked it if I kept brothers out of the loop. The POA gave me the right to carry out her wishes. I think its wrong not to tell siblings where a parent is. Also, what POAs plans are. He has the final decision, but if there is no family problems, I don't see a problem keeping siblings in the loop. In some instances, its a control thing and wrong.
Suggestions, though, depend so much on what has actually happened. Your mother was "recently" sent to a rehab facility - when? Two weeks, a month and a half, five days ago? Clearly someone has been in touch with the rehab team, because someone told someone that your mother will probably be moved to a nursing facility - who told whom what? With what authorisation?
You are naturally concerned at the lack of information, and you say that your brother won't respond to texts, calls or emails. Hmmm. What does "won't respond" mean? If you've left several pleasant voicemails at sensible times of day asking him to call you back, and there's been nothing for three weeks, then he's not responding. If you called yesterday because he didn't answer a text at the weekend, that doesn't count. When exactly was anyone last in direct contact with him?
How long a way is a long way? The thing is. Between the four of you. Assuming you would expect to get it together to attend your mother's funeral, the travel isn't actually impossible, is it? And when you come to think about it, isn't it better to go to that much trouble and expense when the person you care about is there to appreciate it? If you're really worried and want to see for yourself how she's doing, I'd make the journey.
My mother prepared POA documents more than a decade before she began having any age related problems. At that time she stated she did this "...so that C will never have any voice in my care." My estranged brother C stopped working regularly in his late 40s and devoted himself to buying and reselling flea market items to make a living. Whenever a bill came due and he didn't have the money to pay it, my father would cover it. As my father's vascular dementia worsen, C needed more. As my mother objected, C began verbally and emotionally abusing her. When she wouldn't "mind" and sign over her property (home, rentals) to C because she had three children, C filed for guardianship, seeking to overturn her POAs. He lost primarily because Mom was still competent at that time.
My mother still deserves a right to privacy even into her advanced years. My mother deserves peace and not bickering over her possessions like crows before she is even dead. C used any knowledge he had as weapons against my mother. C went through her medicine cabinet and found a prescription for Aricept and decided she must have ALZ so she must need him as her guardian since her POAs wouldn't get her treatment and just said Mom's doctors noted some mild cognitive decline but no signs of dementia yet. C searched my mother's house, including her bedroom, and took bank statements and other personal property. C was enraged that most of my mother's jewelry was missing at the time of his search because Mom had appeared at my house one afternoon carrying her jewelry box and asking me to keep it at my house (I lived across the street and chauffeured Mom most places she went wearing her jewelry).
A POA is suppose to act at the direction or in the best interest of the principal, not fulfill the wishes of his/her siblings. I tell family (my mother's siblings, cousins, estranged son) the doctor's general diagnosis (hairline fracture above the knee), treatment (rest and PT), and prognosis (probably will not walk normally again but should do OK with a walker). I do not usually share details except with my co-POA and some very personal details I do not share with him unless there is some need. He needs to know only surgery will repair the break enough for a full recovery but the risk of surgical complications is so high Mom would probably be worse off after surgery than living with the injury. He doesn't really need to know I'm fanatical over cleaning Mom during each incontinence panty change because she has some birthing scars that are easily irritated. Mom didn't share information about her scars with him when she was fully competent and I'm not going to unless there is a need. I consider that respecting her privacy.
If your brother is choosing not to communicate with you it is mostly likely because he feels threaten in some way. Maybe he anticipates someone is going to question his every decision; that is very hard to take especially when the decision was difficult to make. Or maybe he doesn't know yet what he will need to do with the house and doesn't want to talk about it until he does.
I suggest you try approaching your brother in a supportive manner, asking what you can do to help. He isn't "required" to tell you anything, so be thankful for what he chooses to share. My experience is that when families have these kinds of problems over discussing a parent's care, the relationships between the siblings broke down long before. The relationship doesn't break down over the parent's care, it just becomes more noticeable.
We then got forms from the Drs allowing us to allow treatment for her. If you are far away, you may have to hire someone to get her to the Dr. Appointments etc unless the facility takes care of this.
Have you tried speaking with your brother in a non confrontational way?
His lack of communication could be for many reasons. None of them justify keeping you in the dark, but they may help explain how it got this way. He may be feeling overwhelmed and defensive because he has HUGE decisions to make while also grieving. Avoidance is always complicated. He might be fearing your collective (or individual) reaction to his decisions.
Bottom line - you’re entitled to answers. Stop doing what’s not working.