Thank you everyone that helped me realize bringing my 2 parents (ages 91 and 93, one with severe dementia) would be a very difficult situation. I live out of state and my in state siblings are refusing to help them (will not call my parents anymore or visit them). I am solo in trying to navigate this situation and my parents (nor my brother) will tell me if he has PoA for them. My parents have been pretty independent taking care of themselves in their home. I have been flying back and forth from my home to their home trying to set up a schedule with siblings to assist them in their daily needs (no help and now I am solo). I can not leave them by themselves and they are refusing to go to a nursing home. They want to live with me because they don't want to be along. I cannot figure out how to move them because my dad gets aggressive and very confused in car rides (tried a couple different rides to see how he would react).
Where do I even begin to find quality in home care for them? Are there local agencies I can call?
You are talking 24/7 care?
Have you checked agencies in your area?
Because that will tell you, I think, that unless you are looking at millions and millions in assets, then you cannot begin to afford this.
You have siblings in the area.
And you are telling us that they REFUSE to tell you if any one of them currently holds POA?
Yet you believe that you can convince them of some sort of schedule?
And you are the sibling who lives out of the area?
For me, there is a whole lot of lack of knowledge, understanding, talking with family, and magical thinking going on here.
There is no way I can even begin to imagine that you can handle this situation from where you are.
I would tell all siblings by letter that you are concerns and feel uninformed as to your parents current status and their needs. That you will be visiting (and you will need to do this for some time so get family leave act information) and assessing needs/abilities/finances/placement options for your parents, and would like to meet with them all so that you can get needs/placement talks started.
This is by no means easy. Were it me I would be loath to take this on long distance and don't see how it can be done. If there is no POA operating currently then with two with dementia you are looking at APS being called in an a temporary guardian being appointed.
Watch what you wish for as the guardian is then responsible for safety, placement, management and record keeping of every penny currently in and every penny coming in and every penny going out, and with siblings like yours I predict problems and threats.
Honestly I don't believe, living away from them, that you are the sibling to take this on.
I might sit back and watch a while. They are in their own home. I must assume no one told you they are in need, in danger? I can't know why other siblings in the area won't communicate with you; that usually means that some troubled waters have been flowing under the bridge for a long long time.
So to be brief:
1. Siblings who won't communicate with you means something is VERY WRONG.
2. Elders in 90s who are demented and living alone when family is nearby is a dreadful situation.
3. You don't live there.
4. Nothing can be done by someone who does even live there.
You may be down to calling APS and asking them to assess just what is going on there and who is in charge of it.
I wish you the best, but I cannot even BEGIN to fathom what is happening in all of this.
Direct hire (generally from local referrals.)
It now has to be what is best for all involved(including you)and what is best for their safety and well being, and I believe that you already know that the answer to that is having them placed in the appropriate facility where they will receive the 24/7 care they now require and you can get back to just being their child and advocate.
DO NOT under any circumstances allow them to move in with you, as they and their health will only get worse and you will be biting off way more than you can chew.
Focus now on finding the right facility for them to move into. Senior Services, and your Area Agency on Aging should be able to help you get started in the right direction.
One question that is not clear, do they have a POA established and is it your brother , or ? Who?
if its your brother, that can be ok if he is in agreement with you on everything. He can be POA and you can help him run things, presuming he agrees. Is he far away too?
I had thought about the in home 24/7 care and running it from a distance for both my Mom five years ago (who was in another country at the time! ) and more recently my dad whose primary residence was 1 hour away. The bottom line first of all is, that it will cost a lot of out of pocket money. Are your parents assets enough to handle that?
I recommend going with an agency if you are going with in home care, especially when at a distance. Since you are not local, if a caregiver is out sick or something, an agency will send a substitute in.
If you try to hire a live-in person , and they disappear for a week, or call out sick, you will be really stuck!
I suppose one option can be a live-in caregiver, with an agency on call as backuup...... but it may be risky and the agency may not give you as much priority since you arent using them regularly. BUt I would recommend 100% agency caregivers in this situation if you are going to try to keep them at home, and it will cost quite a bit.
In my area, for 1 caregiver 24 hour coverage, ( three 8 hour shifts), cost is $28,000 a month.
Then, what will you do when they get sick, need to go to doctors etc? Agency care givers can usually drive the elderly person to and from appointments, but they cannot discuss things with doctors or coordinate care. You may also want to look into a geriatric care manager in their area to help oversee that type of stuff. For that, what I have researched and others have corroborated, hiring such a private manager can be a huge help, but they will bill at up to $200 an hour.
So if you can financially pull it off, that is what could be done.
Or as others have posted, if you can get them both moved to assisted living, its going to be much less of a cost, especially if they share a room in assisted living, which should be fine I would think.
I see at Alva has pointed out a number of other issues and questions to ask and make sure are covered..
Ava’s advice is the best. “Sit back and watch for a while”. Then call APS and ‘ask them to assess just what is going on’.