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October 25, 2007 4:00 PM

Children of-ailing-seniors-especially-from-California-filter: 80 year old Mom in law broke her hip 8 weeks ago. Always a bit dif't and "the hyper controlling" type, she raised kids and even held down a career. Now that she's in the hospital, that control game... none of the nurses want any part her intense and alienating desire to run the show. Absent her control-type coping mechanism, Mom-in-law is losing her stuff. Rapidly. Entirely. The Medicare / HMO (no deductables to pay.ever!) plan will pitch pills at her but no hands-on treatment (IOW counseling) whatsoever. She needs better care than the HMO will allow. Long Dx short: She's pretty much dying from lack of mental health coverage. >>>Is dumping Medicare / HMO plan and switching to to Medicare / MediCal (she's fully elligable) in fact likely to result in affording Mom-in-law a broader spectrum of treatments and perhaps better care?
posted by Fupped Duck to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

Before you do anything make damn sure she isn't over medicated. Morphine is a powerful drug, and My mom went totallt nast when she broke her hip. After we insisted they stop the morphine (or other opiate related pain meds) she mellowed out.
posted by Gungho at 4:59 PM on October 25, 2007

Same thing happened to my father, he became extremely agitated and irrational on morphine. Once we (finally) got them to stop giving it to him he was fine.
posted by fshgrl at 7:39 PM on October 25, 2007

Thirding the med check advice.
posted by small_ruminant at 11:42 AM on October 26, 2007