Can I lie to my mother who has Alzheimer's Disease?

[gez722]

My mother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She is still living in a house by herself. Since my father passed away 3 years ago, my sister and I have been begging her to move. She has strongly refused, saying that her husband built that house and she’s never leaving. She insists that she doesn’t have any memory problems and that any doctor that says she does is a “crackpot”. She promises to call a lawyer if anyone ever tries to make her move.

We are paying all of her bills for her, but she is now struggling with the day to day things. In the past few months, she has forgotten how to make coffee, constantly has expired food in her refrigerator, thinks that she is talking to a real person when she gets an answering machine on the phone, forgotten how to adjust the thermostat in her house, thinks she’s my wife’s aunt and hired a man walking down the street (who spent time in jail for manslaughter) to trim her trees and then proceeded to invite him into her bedroom to try and fix her tv (which isn’t broken). I am leaving out tons of details, but she is an accident waiting to happen.

She absolutely cannot listen to reason. We have tried every conceivable way to get her out of that house with no success. We have recently gotten her on the waiting list at a wonderful Catholic assisted living facility where she will be safe and treated with dignity.

Given her mental state, is it morally permissable to fabricate a story in order to get her out of the house? We are contemplating telling her that the water is being turned off (due to a problem discovered by the city) and she needs to “temporarily” vacate her house so the problem will be fixed.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

While I greatly sympathize with your dilemma, I cannot recommend flat-out lying to your mother. In addition to the moral problem of lying, please consider that the disease has robbed your mother of her memory and ability to reason reliably. However honorable and good your intentions, lying to her in order to facilitate removing her from her home will only add to the indignity she already must endure from her illness.

I recommend talking to a lawyer to find out what options you have to gain the authority to make health decisions for your mother. If you acquire that authority, then it will become possible to simply move your mother to the facility, out of concern for her best interests.