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Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly  If he's got dementia, he doesn't always know what he is doing or why so it's not criminal in that sense. But it isn't that easy to get the family to commit someone to a Nursing Home and, even if they want to, if there are no Medicaid beds in the facility nearest or they don't have the funds to pay, they have to have them arrested and they go to a horrible state hospital, where the demented are often raped, beaten and abused by one and all. Often, the other spouse depends on the one with dementia for their own care and won't try to get them help. Such is the state of the elderly and dementia in our country, at times. We went through some terrible things with my BIL when he had Alzheimer's, prior to getting his diagnosis. He passed as a normal person for the longest time when others were around until my sister(who was blind) could talk him into going to see a neuropsych and that took two years! The doc told her that until he saw my BIL's test results, he did not believe he was in any way a dementia/Alzheimer's patient. It is VERY hard to get help at times. Even when the demented patient is trying to leave the house in the middle of the night to get a car inspection(!) and hasn't mentation enough to drive to find the grocery store in the day time and one calls the police, police often admonish the family for calling 911 - if the patient transitions out of the dementia phase due to fear before the police arrive. And once they transition out of the dementia for a time, they can pass as a normal person quite well. If you are still trying to get a diagnosis, there is nothing on paper and no proof. There are a lot of reasons why a sick person hasn't good care and is out doing things on his own, totally unsupervised, but the police feel they haven't sufficient evidence to get a conviction of a person for a criminal act or judged as a mental incompetent. |
I'm sorry Jeanie, I guess I didn't meant "criminal" as in send him to jail. It's just that I get so frustrated when seemingly "good" people don't think things through and think they can pass off their "problem" to someone else to deal with.
I most certainly do understand the difficulties the authorities and mental health professionals have when working with diminished mental capacities. I've worked in this area myself. I guess I was just expressing my frustration and choose the wrong words.
Thanks so much. It's good to know that others, like yourself, understand the need to take circumstances into account when looking at any problem. Bless You!!