My father-in-law has late Alzheimer's. He is ok with medications but he denies that he has Alzheimer's. Maybe your mother-in-law is in denial and does not think she has Alzheimer's.  Also since she lives alone, someone has to make sure she takes her medications. You sure it is ok for her to live alone and she won't forget her medications or food? Even though she is or was intelligent, you have to make sure that her Alzheimer's does not make her get worse. If she gets worse, it is invisible until it is too late, so please find some caregiver for her to check her everyday and make sure she takes the medications. These patients are like children, and someone just has to be there and coach her to make her take it. Maybe put the medications in yogurt or something.

If she is still very alert with early Alzheimer's, maybe you can find a home care nurse or some health professional to talk to her and explain to her about the benefits of the medications. My mother also is reluctant to take medications due to her worry about side effects for her minor stroke. So maybe your mother-in-law just needs someone to reassure her that the medications are good for her.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Nina 

Hi, Ann,

My mom also often refused to take medications as her memory got worse. I think it was caused by two things - (1) her wish to remain in control and (2) forgetting whether she had taken the drugs or not. She and my father got into heated verbal battles when he would remind her to take her medications because she would take his tone as being critical and felt like he was trying to take away her independence.

I can't tell by your description whether your mother-in-law matches my mother's situation and whether your husband is over at her house regularly to administer the medications, so I'll share a couple of suggestions that might (or might not) be helpful:

1. There are pill systems with auditory reminders that can help your mother-in-law remember when to take pills if your husband is not present.

2. You also may want to put up some sort of marker board where you can post a reminder for her to take her medications. I wrote about this tactic at http://www.healthcentral.com/alzheimers/caregiver-2570-143.htm

3. You can have the doctor write a letter that your husband can share with her regularly that says she needs to take the pills. Or else you can write a note on the marker board that the doctor wants her to take the pills. (That strategy seemed to work especially well with my mom, who idolized her doctor).

3. You can call her to remind her to take her pill(s) on a daily basis.

4. You can hire a health service provider to stop by to get your mother-in-law to take her pills. (Sometimes a third party can get a loved one to do these types of things easier).

Also, based on my experience, I'd suggest your husband think tactically about how to get his mother to do what needs to be done. Realizing that long-established power patterns in relationships between parents and children are often difficult to break (and become even more difficult to change when dementia is present), your husband may want to think about how he approaches requests. Again, I wrote about how we got my mom to do things she didn't want to do at http://www.healthcentral.com/alzheimers/c/42/1779/Its-How-You-Say-It/

Take care and keep us posted!

Dorian

Thanks for your question.  I thought you might be interested in reading some material from our Caregiver Center.  Specifically, these sections might be really helpful to you:

Tips for Communicating with Your Loved One

Dealing with Day-to-Day Care of a Loved One

Hope this helps and all the best, sue