Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee

Re: My widowed mother has Alzheimer's

I can tell from your zip code you live in Morristown, TN. I practiced there for several years. You should contact the Alzheimer's Center there in Morristown. They may have some fast and easy solutions for you. You only need a Power of Attorney if mom can still give consent. If not, you may need a guardianship.

Contact the Center. It is a great place which has helped many people.

God Bless,

Jon Perry

Alzheimer's solutions

I take care of an elderly parent with Alzheimer's, and in fact I do extensive health care research -- to the point that I suggest drug treatments that even our local doctors have not considered yet. Alzheimer's is a disease that should have a very slow progression. If your mother is declining rapidly, that tends to indicate she is not on the right medicines. I don't know about your educational background or your skill at using the Internet, but unless you have a good reason otherwise, your mother should be on six different treatments for Alzheimer's. If your local doctor indicates there are only two classes of drugs for Alzheimer's, then he is not up to speed on the latest treatment therapies. I am writing an article on this subject, but I don't have it more that sketched out, I would send it to you.

A lot of caregivers succomb to the idea that nursing homes have some magical way of dealing with Alzheimer's patients, and their loved ones are safe and secure there. In fact, nursing homes are badly understaffed, with one nurse's assistant for usually 12 or 13 patients. If one of the patients uses the bathroom in his or her clothes, that patient will most likely sit or lie in that mess for hours before someone comes in to change the person. Even then, the staff won't have time to put the person in a shower, and will just wipe around a little, smearing the germs all over, and then put the patient in new clothes.

I have spent hours and hours in nursing homes, and I have seen the same type of care over and over again. Nursing homes are a beehive of activity from 9 AM - 5 PM, but after 5 PM and on weekends, they are like ghost towns with respect to the skeletal staff in place.

Your mother's condition can be treated. Agitation can be treated. There is no reason you cannot improve her grasp of reality more than what it is today --- but it takes medication. Antidepressants are extremely important in the treatment of Alzheimer's. They not only keep a person from going into depression, they also keep the person less agitated, cut down on halucinations if not eliminate them, and dramatically decerase paranoid behavior when patients can't remember where they placed items.

I give my mother a potent mix of drugs each day, but the net result is that we have perfectly normal conversations 8 years after diagnosis, we eat out at restaurants at least twice and sometimes 3 times per week. Alzheimer's has not been the terrible disease for our family that seems to have ravaged other families --- but again, I am extremely involved in her medicine intake and read daily the latest treatments and proposed treatments and clinical trials for Alzheimer's.

Mike Guth