Montana Elder Care In The Shadow Of Dementia

My mom has dementia. This is pretty new in our family. She was just diagnosed a couple of weeks ago.

What a horrible state of affairs. My mom who KNOWS things are wrong. She KNOWS her brain isn't working right, and she DOESN'T know what to do about it.

So, she turns to me. And I'm glad of it. Don't get me wrong. I strongly believe I am the very best advocate for her at this point in her life.

What's awful is the way I'm being treated. Not mom. Me. (It's not everyone, either. I want to be clear I have dealt with some compassionate people.)

Let me regale you with the abbreviated story:

Back in 4th quarter of 2024, Mom started having some problems. They were minor, but they were problematic, like forgetting doctor's appointments or changing the story of how I got my name. Not really anything to ring the alarm. I forget things all the time.

In the course of this, my mom started telling her doctors she didn't feel right when she took her medicine, and they were constantly changing her many prescriptions. She had an in-home nurse that helped her with all of those shenanigans as we were always asking them to look at her meds. Any weirdness was attributed to her prescriptions.

In March or so  of 2025, my mom took a heck of a fall. (It is not EVEN one of her first falls, it's just one we were able to respond to.) She ended up in the hospital. They said she was having seizures, she was on medication and would go home as soon as they thought she was stable.

They send her home, and sometimes she got slurry speech, or she'd fall. Over and over and over and over again we asked to haver her medication checked because this all seemed to come on with the seizure medication.

About 2 weeks ago, my mom took a fall and was on the floor for an undetermined amount of time. She was completely hallucinating, she couldn't stand up, and she actually asked for an ambulance.

It was the day after she was admitted that a nurse called and asked how long ago she had been diagnosed with dementia. I told her no one had ever told me she had dementia.

Mom has dementia, seizures, she now has a pacemaker, macular degenerative disease and a whole litany of other problems, like brain shrinkage. None of this was diagnosed until a couple of weeks ago.

I have been trying desperately to get her out of independent living and into assisted living and it's a nightmare.

Something everyone should know, unless you are extremely wealthy, they treat you like your parent is indigent. My mom makes a pretty decent retirement income, and it falls short of the care she needs. You see, a $4,000 room does NOT cover the assisted part of assisted living. That's where the up to $3,000 or so comes in causing a room about the size of a small hotel room to cost over $7,000 a month.

Don't worry though, the government is absolutely willing to cover you IF you sell everything you own, including furniture, and hand over the money, then hand over your monthly income for a stipend that I have been told, I don't know for sure, is $50 a month. (When I find out what that figure actually is, I'll let you know.) My mom literally spends more than that a month on fruit, and she was living WELL within her means.

The government is going to look into how my mom spent her money for the last 5 years. They reprimanded me for not making my mom spend all of her money on nothing but medical things for the last 5 years, in case she got dementia. They have told me they will penalize her for spending money on things she wanted instead of handing it all over, like the vehicle that drives her everywhere. It. Is. Insane.

I tell you all of this because in between trying to keep my job, get my mom into assisted living, clean out her apartment, and sleep for about 4-5 hours a night, there is a gal who works "helping" get people into assisted living. This is an assumption I'm making as she hasn't done one single helpful thing for us to date.

She calls me, at least, 5 times a week asking me if things SHE SAYS takes months are done. Every day I tell her no. I even offered to call HER when it's worked out. She insists on calling.

Today, she really outdid herself when she shunned me and said Mom has to be sent home and I, me, can't keep her there forever. I told her to go ahead and release my mom.

Then I told her about all the changes I'm going to make when I own that hospital. Number one thing, since apparently I can admit people to the hospital, is to put her in and bother her every day about how she will pay for it.

I could go on for thousands of words, but nobody needs that.

Thanks for coming to the losing your parents to dementia sucks Ted Talk. I'm sure we'll have another soon.

Here are some great counties to retire in. Just watch how you spend your money for 5 years before you get dementia, you don't want to get in trouble.