My 90-year-old mother fell in her senior apartment after taking bottles of aspirin and cold medicine. She had received a diagnosis of diabetes earlier in the week, and of macular degeneration the day before. She was well aware that my husband and I have actively been looking the past two weeks for an AL place for her closer to where we live, and was happy at the prospect of being only 15 minutes away instead of 60+. We did tell the ER doctor that she'd taken pills, and so of course they issued a 5150. We visited each of the four days that she was in the ER and Observation, and she was more lucid with each day (was hallucinating the first 24 hours or so), though when I asked (multiple times) if she remembered why she'd fallen, she seemed honestly puzzled. She did have a previous attempt some years ago, which at the time she told the doctors (clearly lying) was an accident.
My question is: Will the 5150 and/or suicide attempt prevent her from getting into the AL place we've chosen? This place also has memory care. We hadn't yet been able to get to her primary-care doctor to get the Form 602 physician's report that California requires for entry into AL, but the AL place said that they could get their doctor to do it. I will not lie to the AL if it comes to that, obviously, but I'm prepared to slide around mom's being a "high-risk" if needed, because I'm as sure as a person can be, I guess, that having the luxuries of AL, help with managing her diabetes and macular degeneration, and maybe even more importantly, the social interaction -- which she does not get much, living alone in a senior apartment -- will be an enormous boost to her spirits.
I am still playing phone tag with Social Services.
Have always thought that I'm a strong and capable person, but holy crap this is knocking me for a loop.
Seniors who are having memory or cognitive impairment can do what your Mom did and not because they're suicidal. If she's not saying it herself, so how can this be her diagnosis?
Was she on meds for any type of depression or anxiety prior to this incident? If not, will she be on them going forward? More info for context would be helpful, thanks.