Expert: Paula Damgaard - 4/5/2009

Question
My uncle is 72 and lives out of state with Andrea, his second wife (of 25 years). For the past year when my parents talk to Andrea she has been worried about my uncle's decline and that's when we started thinking he has alzheimers. He wanders off and the police bring him back home all the time. He has temper tantrums that he needs to move back to his old house from 40 years ago. He gets violent when he catches Andrea on the phone.
Andrea tries to get him to see the doctor but he absolutely refuses. So he is not on any medication at all. He won't take his diabetes medicine either. He wont even bathe.
His children went to visit and agreed he needs to see a doctor and want him to also get a will. But they left everything to Andrea to do, but did not give her any plan or help.
Now he no longer recognizes Andrea. He had her call us so he can talk to my dad. He sounds otherwise coherent to my dad, except he insists that Andrea is actually an old man and an imposter and is keeping him prisoner. My uncle absolutely refuses to consider that anything is wrong with his health and completely refuses to see a doctor or lawyer or anyone.  My dad is going to travel out to see him on Friday but my question is, once my dad gets down there, where do they start?  How do they "make" my uncle do things?  If he'd see a doctor, maybe he could get medicine to help him think clearly. Or maybe he needs to be put into a care facility. His children want a lawyer to have him make a will.  Andrea needs power of attorney.  But how do they go about anything with someone who is unwilling?  And what if he doesn't recognize my dad either?
Other than to physcially subdue him and drag him someplace -- what is the first step?  Would they have someone come to the house? A doctor? A lawyer? The police?

Answer
Hi Jennifer, as you are finding out this disease has many faces!  People think Alzheimer's disease is "losing their memory" they have no idea the other areas of a person's life that are involved!

I would suggest that your dad and Andrea go see Adult protective services in the area where they live.  Tell them the whole story and they should spring into action.  Which would be the nice way for this to play out.

The other thing that Andrea can do is when he gets violent when she is on the phone is to use the phone to dial 911.  The police will hear him yelling and carrying on and that will be enough to take him to the psych ward and at least then he would be held for 48 hours against his will (at least that is the way it is done here in VA, I am sure it is similar in your area).  The doctors will have a chance to look at him and then they can go to the judge and tell him that he is not fit to go home right now.  At least that is the way it is supposed to work.  Andrea is going to have to tell the judge that she is in fear of her life and that she cannot take him back home again. Then the judge would have to commit him to the hospital.  Hopefully that would give them the ability to medicate him so that he could either return home or be placed.  Unfortunately it is probably too late for Andrea to get him to give her his POA, so she would have to go to court to be appointed his guardian.  I worry about his children giving her a hard time.  Seems like they are only interested in his stuff.  Andrea needs to see a lawyer to make sure that she is secure in funds etc to live out her life.  

I hope this helps.  I am sorry you have to go through all of this.  Just tell you dad that he is going to have to be forceful and that lying to get your uncle to do what needs to be done is ok!  

Paula