Family member with alzheimers was attacked?

Question

Ok so my mother in law has been living with dementia. She was badly beaten up, and has no history of self harm or violence. She is delusional. The police took statements from the neighbors, (who have a nice long history of violence against women, animal cruelty, etc, etc.) They said they found her rolling around in the front yard crying. They took her to the hospital and no rape kit was done, and no investigation as to who did this to her. They put her in the psych ward. We have been waiting for social services to do something, as she thinks nothing is wrong with her, and in her delusions she thinks we are conspiring to kill her, and would never let us around her house and would call the police on us. I am glad she is finally under 24 hour care, but my instincts tell me that something really did happen to her, but she just keeps saying she woke up and her face was beaten and she was cut up. What can I do?

Answer 1

First I would try to find a sympathetic specialist within the system. Go hang out in the psych ward and get to know some of the people who work there. Tell them about your concerns and ask them how exactly you can go about finding out about this. Someone can probably interview her in the right way. So who is that person who could help her? It sounds like she is not totally delusional yet.
Also, I would try to contact some support groups for patients and families of patients with Alzheimers. They are people too so they have some rights, and there will be specialists out there.
Here's one Website for recognizing the abuse of the elderly (looks like you are already pretty good at describing what happened).
Here's another site for an applicatoin for a grant to help families provide care for Alzheimers patients.

Keep searching. If I find more useful stuff I'll post it.

Answer 2

Sadly, there really isn't anything you can do. I suggest you put her in a supervised care facility. There are plenty such places available, but they are expensive. You could also bring her to live with you. At the very least, it is advisable to install 24-hour surveilance if you think someone is harming her. Someone may indeed be harming her, but with her mental state it is next to impossible to tell and it would be even hard than that to convict based on her own testimony. I wish you the very best. Unfortunately, you really don't have many options.

Answer 3

You may never find out what really happened, so it is probably not worth too much effort to try.

The real and immediate effort has to go obtaining a valid diagnosis of her condition and getting her into the best treatment and living situation as possible.

Hospitals have social service departments, and it seem s to me they should have been in touch with you, but there's no reason not to stop in at their offices on your very next hosptial visit, or simply state your need at the nurses station. In my experience they are quite helpful in providing an overview and shortterm answers to your "Now what?" questions.

Good lcuk to you all.

Answer 4

in the experience that your grandmother has had hydrocephalus and is eighty 3 years previous she could be experiencing greater problems with that concern that are in basic terms surfacing. this could be an entire diverse scientific concern than Alzheimer's or hypochondria. supply her the convenience of no longer labeling her with those diagnostic words. as quickly as someone is even stated to have something it interferes with the means of the scientific profession to diagnose needless to say. It adjustments peoples theory of the guy so categorized.