Assuming you are in the US. We just went through this with a family member. Her mental decline happened in the matter of a few months, following an accident. They had a prior TBI, and something just snapped, I don’t know.

I can’t attest to how to get a dementia diagnosis. Their decline was completely atypical of regular dementia, but it did meet the technical definition. They were admited to the hospital and it took a long time for the doctors to really pick up on it. Instead of answering the questions, they would just get hostile. Eventually, things would slip, but we had a really hard time getting a straight diagnosis, even though staff treated her as a dementia patient.

As someone else mentioned here, you need to find out who, if anyone, will be granted power of attorney and medical power of attorney, if he is diagnosed. Technically, if he is diagnosed, they will have complete control over his finances and medical decisions. If he has made no plans to transfer POA / MPOA, you / your family will independently need to pay for any and all care. (Although you may have to anyways, as rules will vary state by state, for who is responsible for the bills). I would consult a lawyer that specializes in elder care. There may also be a regional government elder care department that maybe able to give you some information.

Getting a guardianship can take years, and emergency guardianship only lasts for a few days. If there is no one designated, and your grandfather is not willing / able to sign the forms… as someone told us, “Oh, your in a pickle.” If it comes to this, he will have to have progressed pretty far with the disease for any doctor to sign the paperwork. Guardianship means that all rights are stripped from them and given to someone else. Even though the guardian will have to submit to regular audits, people still abuse the position, and the doctors also have a responsibility to safeguard against this.

If he has dementia, medicaid will help cover costs, but you need POA to apply for him. If he has retirement money, you cannot access it without POA. If you can not pay, no place will take him. Full stop, unless someone takes pity on you and you can work out a deal of some sorts.

Medicare will pay for about 20 day in full, and up to 100 days partially, with stipulations, if there is a 3 day hospital stay involved. Fyi. Hospitals in the US must discharge to a safe place. If the home is “not safe” they cannot force you to take them home regardless of what they say. They will threaten to kick them out of the hospital, they will threaten guardianship, they will try to guilt you. If you can not care for them, then refuse to take them and tell them it is “not safe”. Do not sign discharge papers until you consult a lawyer.

Care homes will need to specialize in dementia, or they will not take him, so your options will be limited. Hobestly, I think it ultimately has to do with fire safety.

I’m sorry if this is scary, but it’s been a nightmare for us, and I don’t wish this on anyone else. The sooner you start preparing, the smoother it will go once the time comes. You really have to be at the top of your game to navigate the (again US) medical system, if your trying to care for someone else. Of course, in this country, it all comes down to how much money you have.

Good luck.

Stab in the dark…your on tmobile.

It does this to me too. You disable the damn thing, then you get a carrier update and it reactivates and downloads stupid games no one wants.

First time it did it to me, I thought I got a virus. Come to find out…nah it’s just a thing tmobile forces on you for fun.

Assholes

Soo. About 20 years ago a family member (1) ran off another family member (2). Family member 2 didn’t want to leave and was genuinely worried about family member 1, but it was the best plan of action. The only person that was nearby and trustworthy at the time was the neighbor.

It’s possible that family member 2 put some sort of monitoring device in the house and gave access to the neighbor to make sure family member 1 was safe.

It does sound nutty though. I’m not denying that. I mention it, because I am unsure of the capabilities of monitoring devices from 20 years ago. Now our door bells just show us who is at the door, but 20 years ago that technology was nonexistent.

They don’t hear anything with regular conversation, unless we’re outside on the porch.

I use an iPhone thats i got in 2022, on carrier signal, over regular voice calls, not wifi call or anything like that.

I’ll use a pair of true wireless jbl earbuds. I admit, I never really stopped to test if it only happens when connect to the earbuds or not.

Both houses do have landlines, but I haven’t used the landline for any of these conversations. It’s pretty much only used to field telemarketers or for things like the ac repair guy and the church people.

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I like this tactic. Will try when the neighbor gets back.

I’ve definitely have disconnect all the bluetooth devices, but i did reconnect my hands free set. Your right though, I shouldn’t use it for a few days.

I never imagined it could be the phone itself. I mean I looked for apps but I guess stuff like that doesn’t just show up in the app drawer all the time.

If nothing else I’ll find out if there’s anywhere that’s safe

Lol right. They live alone. They’re not discussing its with anyone else, as far as we know. Im not sure who they would even talk to if they had the chance. They’re kind of a shut in.

I do suppose, if there’s a device, and it makes a sound when they turn it on. Other than that i fear all I would hear is shuffling, really loud music, and whomever has replaced Rush Limbaugh on the radio.

So, it’s the neighbors mental condition that’s taken the dive. They left to get help. It is indeed possible some of thier crazy rubbed off on me, but it really is eerie. They did actually state a couple times that theyve heard us talking or laughing or whatever. We blew it off at first cause…yeah, ok. you HEARD us…the second time they said it, we already had our suspicions.

At this point we eliminated what we thought the cause was (that damn radio) since there wasnt anything new for the few days until they left. I’m not opposed to the idea that maybe the last one was actually a coincidence, (which would be a relief) we can’t really test out any theories until they get back home, we were just hoping to get rid of the culprit before hand, so as not to cause any further distress.

The detector we used was a rf/gps/infrared scanner. We did not use it during a call, only after. I figured something like that was always transmitting, but why would it be if it wasnt actively being used. This is helpful. Thank you.

The vents are not actually connected. The vent leads to an area outside that is easily accessible by people, and is mostly out of sight unless you go out of your way. But we’ve been looking at that area since it was a problem before.

The other people I talk to are my support system. One has limited contact with the neighbor and the other really has next to no contact at all, so im positive they’re not leaking any information to them. The person with limited contact has also been witness to this. They live away from the property.

Thank you for the ideas, I learned something new today.

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This is interesting because while they do have ear / hearing issues, they’ve never gotten hearing aids from a doctor, but it doesn’t mean they never ordered them from some catalog, or whatever.

Like just because ive never seen them doesnt mean they dont exist. They maybe too proud to have them in while people are around, but might use them to watch TV or listen to the media.

I’ll definitely check into this. Thank you.

This was the thought, but only that radio would be paired.

The radio in my house actually does broadcast the voice of the person on the other end of the phone. But when we tried it on their radio it didn’t work the same.

Hmm, but after no imput for a while, the radio shut off, and the call dropped.

You know you maybe on to something. I’ll look into that.

Thanks!

Yeah, I know…

I before e except after c…

It’s definitely a chronic problem I have. Since I changed phones a while back, it gives me suggestions but I have to manually select them. Typically, it underlines the misspelled words but in these apps, it just doesnt.

And as many times as i spelled “thier” here, it all just went to shit.

I will double check my settings.

Sorry about that. :\

there’s a common misunderstanding in texas, as well, about cedar trees.

a while back, a ranch owner with ALOT of land, who was considered a great steward of trees, was interviewed for an article and stated that new cedars used too much water and that he tears them all out of areas where he wants to maintain a forest of alternate trees (i.e. oak, elm, whatever, idk)

everyone took that to mean tear out all cedar trees whether there was a forest of other trees or not, no matter how much land you have. they completely overlooked the qualifiers to practice this type of land management. (obviously owning cows are a different story, but almost none of these people own cows)

a ridiculous amount of land in Central Texas (esp the hill country) now is barren save the 1 or 2 odd scraggly oak trees here and there. anytime someone buys land (even a couple of acres) the first thing they do is clear cut the damn place, causing unnecessary erosion, bringing in uneeded heat, and in general, killing the ecosystems that made that area special in the first place.

I downloaded connect for lemmy yesterday just to see, and although it won’t let me sign in unless I give it my email instead of username. (ive been SOL if an instance doesn’t require an email, but maybe it works on someone elses) i think I’m liking connect better than jerboa though. For me it’s been less glitchy, and it easier to access content.