Advice please

[Pixxie7]

Long story but will try and keep it brief.
My mother is a narcissist and controlled my life for years. She is now 90 and apart from the odd phone call I have no contact with her. However 1 of my daughters, having been manipulated for years became her executive.
Recently she has been diagnosed with dementia, although I am not sure she is as bad as she makes out.
Anyway she had a fall 6 months ago and went into a care home to recuperate following a family meeting it was decided she should come home to see how she got on.
She was coping with carers and family input, however she is ringing people up god knows how many times a day then saying she can’t remember, mainly due to loneliness, she wants attention all the time.
My other daughter was going in sometimes twice in addition to carers.
Over the weekend the daughter who who is the executive decided that she needed to go back into the care home. My other daughter has now challenged the decision and got social services involved having gone to see.her and found she wast happy.
I know what my mother is like and have every sympathy for daughter number 1. But understand daughter number 2s position and really don’t know how to proceed as tearing my family apart.

Sorry meant power of attorney not executive.

Not sure what you mean by executive? Executors are, as far as I know, related to probate of the will after death. It sounds more like one or both your daughters have power of attorney? If so, this is pretty strictly regulated. Either your mother is competent to make her own decisions or not. If not, the daughter with PofA is legally entitled to make the decision for her, I think. That's the point and your mother must have trusted her to make the right decision. I would let that daughter, maybe with SS input, make the decision and try to keep the other daughter out of it.

Thank you yes I did mean power of attorney, yes you are right but I know how my mother manipulated my daughter into it. The reason my other daughter has got involved is because my mother is saying that she doesn’t want to be there and she thinks her nan is capable of deciding what she wants and is accusing my other daughter of abusing her power. It’s a real mess.

Have social services been out for an assessment yet? What did they say? If there's carers going into the house every day they should have a log book to record how things are and it'll form a pattern of behaviour, including any deterioration. With the best will in the world your mother might be further down the road to dementia and still appearing to exhibit a lot of 'normal behaviour', or what would be wrote off as older person 'forgetfulness'. Early dementia can be covered up by the individual realising its happening, but evolving coping skills to ward off family realising until they're actually tested by a health care professional. The initial stages of dementia are often very frightening for people who basically 'know', but defend to the hilt it's not the case. Long term memory can be a smoke screen to appear like they're managing day to day still. It's possible your other DC just doesn't want to face the fact that a nursing home is the best possible outcome, especially if GM is pushing to live independently.

No they are doing an assessment tomorrow but bear in mind the manipulative nature of narcissism, she could well be playing one off against the other. She has been quite happy for people to know she is forgetful to her own ends. As I said earlier although recognising she is forgetful at times she is fine at others.

I'd still say it boils down to the assessment tbh. POA is generally only linked to financial spends as far as I know? Though others better informed could provably advise far better. But as far as I'm aware the choice/decision to be placed in a care home will not in any way fall to either of your DC to make on her behalf. Even if someone signs over the POA for finances, they aren't signing over their independent life choice decisions, and those can only be over ruled by a team of health professionals if it's deemed to be in the persons best interests. If it wasn't we'd end up with shit loads of older folk getting shunted off to care homes under the 'advice' of relatives, stepping over individuals personal choice when they still have full capacity for their living arrangement options.

@Catsup

I'd still say it boils down to the assessment tbh. POA is generally only linked to financial spends as far as I know? Though others better informed could provably advise far better. But as far as I'm aware the choice/decision to be placed in a care home will not in any way fall to either of your DC to make on her behalf. Even if someone signs over the POA for finances, they aren't signing over their independent life choice decisions, and those can only be over ruled by a team of health professionals if it's deemed to be in the persons best interests. If it wasn't we'd end up with shit loads of older folk getting shunted off to care homes under the 'advice' of relatives, stepping over individuals personal choice when they still have full capacity for their living arrangement options.

@Catsup actually there are two types of power of attorney - property and financial affairs, and health and welfare. The latter includes social care etc and decisions about end of life care.

I think important to see what social services say, though to be honest if they haven’t seen her regularly they might not be a very good judge. I’ve known them personally definitely make mistakes when judging if someone still has capacity.

Do both daughters see them equally as regularly?

But yes with POA they can be challenges but I don’t know all the ins and outs, it’s bloody complicated!

Daughter 1 did see her weekly but has dropped of recently daughter 2 not so much but spends longer with her. My daughter has full power of attorney which in my view was wrong but of course mother knew best. The 1st is a business women the 2nd a nurse, so obviously different opinions.

The social worker hasn’t met her before. The problem is deciding to live independently is fine, she was having carers in and a cleaner. However she needs to be the centre of attention and expects everyone to run around after her. Example she rang my son up 10 times one night to get her some chocolate even though she had loads in her fridge. She cut her phone line so my brother would go round then decided to do the same with the tv.

Her phone calls sound like dementia. Social services are good at judging when someone needs to go into a home.

Thank you she has got some dementia but the question is how bad it is. I spoke to her Monday and was lucid, without putting any pressure on her asking how she was coping she told me she gets lonely and she wanted to downsize, but otherwise she was ok. However when I said to her you enjoyed staying at that home, she said she couldn’t remember. Since going into the home she has turned really nasty apparently.
I just don’t know what to do I am more worried about my daughters to be honest.