My Mom has been living alone for a long time and is extremely independent and stubborn. She refuses to see her memory loss and argues with me daily, telling me she is better now and she is fine. I do not think that she is. She wants to drive to Publix, which is only across the street, and it means everything to her. She doesn't really go anywhere else. People are telling me she should not be allowed to drive and she needs to go into Memory Care. She tells me I'm crazy and she will never go. I've tried so many different things to get her to understand why it is best, but she will not go. I currently have caregivers going in everyday and she hates it. But now she is getting very angry at me and will barely talk to me anymore. What do I do? I have POA but I think that is just for financial things. Everything I read says you have to have guardianship to move her against her will, and I don't have that. People tell me if she gets in a car and drives and hurts herself or someone else, I will be liable? I have been grocery shopping for her and bringing everything in, but if you ask her, she has been doing it herself. She tells me she goes out everyday. But now, she is fixated on the car. Asking me why I took her keys and why I am trying to hold her captive in her apartment. I told her I can take her to the store or her caregiver can, but she just laughs at me. It's just so frustrating and I don't know what to do. I can't do this emotional roller coaster much longer and I'm trying to work a full time job at the same time and I can't keep up with her life and mine.
Next I toured several MCs and discussed criteria for placement with the admission directors. The place I chose for her required to have their own person go to her house and evaluate her. Again, I said this person was sent by her doctor, I did not mention placement.
Not until everyone was in agreement that she was not competent to take care of herself could I place her against her will so to speak. In fact I showed up, told her there was a problem with her house and she had to move into an apartment for a couple weeks. She's been there ever since.
Some PoAs are "durable" - meaning they are active the minute your Mom signed the paperwork. "Springing" means there's some sort of criteria, like a medical diagnosis of impairment. Hopefully your is durable, and covers both medical and financial.
No, you don't need guardianship to find appropriate care for her, whether she agrees with it or not. It will of course be more difficult to get her into a facility against her will if she's literally kicking and screaming but nonetheless the care is in her best interests. You must muscle past this unpleasant phase of getting her in to a sustainable care solution.
"She refuses to see her memory loss..." = Anosognosia, a condition where a person is unaware of their own illness or impairment—not out of denial, but because the brain isn’t recognizing it. Stop arguing with her because it's stressful for both of you and 100% waste of time.
Please educate yourself on dementia. I learned a lot from Teepa Snow videos on YouTube because it gave me reasons for why dementia changes our LOs, and provided ideas for more productive and peaceful interactions with unreasonable, emotional elders.