She says that she was in a fog when it happened...drugged maybe. She claims that she and “the girls” at the nursing home went to a party in a black car to a hotel, where a man with gray hair raped her on the bed. She claims she’s been to other parties before in recent months, like a wedding, and met a different guy that she’s interested in.
She says she walked out of the nursing home willingly (she can walk, but is generally in a wheelchair with an alarm, and uses a walker limitedly), and walked back in. She’s very graphic when she describes the man’s genitalia, giggling about how large it was, and showing us with her hands.
We have noticed that she has been losing her filter in recent months when it comes to sexual conversation. She claims to be “boy crazy.” She has also mentioned how cute the investigators who came to interview her about the rape allegation were, and hopes that they come back to visit her.
Still, we feel the responsibility to take the allegation seriously. Just because she may have details confused, doesn’t mean something might not have happened. We called the police and they came an interviewed her. She kept changing the fantastical story, but one detail she insisted on and still insists on, is that she was raped. She said she “knows what it feels like.”
We contacted the social services Ombudsman (she’s a Medicaid patient) and they also interviewed her, and did an outer examination of her body, which was fine. She has refused an internal exam, and we don’t want to put her through one if it’s not necessary, because we’ve heard it’s very invasive and could be traumatic.
My husband thinks it didn’t happen. He has two sisters, one is convinced it DID happen, and the other is leaning toward not, but still wants to do due diligence. My husband and I agree. That sister is going to meet with the nursing home administration tomorrow.
The one strange thing (if it’s all not strange already), is that the hospital administrator told my husband’s sister who is going to meet with them, that the first they knew of the allegation was when the police detectives showed up. I know this is inaccurate, because the other sister called me right after her mother told her what happened, and she said she told the nurse manager immediately, which was in the afternoon. The police showed up in the evening. Why would they lie about this?
Has anyone dealt with a rape allegation from a parent with dementia in a nursing home? Is there anything I should tell my husband’s sister to ask/request going into her meeting? Is there any other information that might be useful to us in this circumstance?
My secondary concern is that if something did not happen, that the sister who is convinced it did, might raise such a stink that the nursing home would kick her mother out. There isn’t a better nursing home in the area. My mother-in-law is there as a Medicaid patient. Can they kick her out?
Thanks in advance for your replies!
Dear DIL,
I'm so sorry that your family is going through this.
You can't dismiss even the craziest claims from a person that reports a physical violation. Sadly, there ARE cases of rape in NH's, mental health centers, day cares, half way houses, anywhere there are vulnerable people. It's also difficult, because of your mother's mental status, to conclude if your mom was physically violated or just believes she was.
It's good that you called police, told the nurse on duty, called the Ombudsman and the administration.
In my opinion, a visual check of your mother's perineum would not be sufficient to say one way or another. It's good there was no bruising or swelling, but the only way to really get to any evidence is by a doctor doing an internal exam. They still might not have any body fluid evidence (semen) as condoms are available everywhere. Only a doctor could say if there was trauma internally.
An old woman has very little lubricant inside the vagina anymore. It would be difficult performing the sex act without some form of lubrication. Without it, it would cause abrasions internally.
There is a "window" of time to be able to process a rape kit. If this was many days ago, your mother has passed that window and would not be a candidate for the exam.
Are there any cameras in the facility? Could all footage be checked to see if there could have been some problem?
I'm sure the nurse who was told dismissed the whole story as a confused resident telling a tale. It probably did NOT GET to the administration.
My 95 year old (stage 6 Alzheimer's) mom tells me occasionally that a "nasty man" tried to touch her. In her case I don't believe it's true. She's said it about the 1st and 2nd memory care facilities and also about my husband.
The fact that she admitted she's boy crazy, has an attraction to the male investigators, went to a party with her friends, how "ample" his privates were, etc. all sound like "feel good" emotions.
How did she describe the rape? Was she crying, visibly shaken, nervous, or having any emotion that any of US would have if we'd been raped? Was she cooperative with the Ombudsman checking her?
Has she complained of pain or itching "down there"?
You'll never really know but, because of her "pleasure" in describing everything up to the "rape", I'm going with frontal lobe dementia creating one doozie of a story.
Again, I'm sorry for your family.
Over the 4 years she was there, my mother was consumed by thoughts of sex. Every person in the facility was having sex with everyone else in every place imaginable, including INSIDE her bed UNDER the mattress. Staff was sleeping with patients. A boy rode his bike down the “streets” outside her room and stole her underwear to parade around with it. While I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, my mother was a prude. I honestly don’t know how I was conceived. I will always wonder, but don’t really want to know, whatever happened to my mom, if anything, in her life to cause this obsession with sex in her demented years.
Rapes and abuse do happen in nursing homes. Just once is too many times. But I feel that because of so much social media exposure of EVERYTHING nowadays, all nursing homes get a bad rap. We are told to be suspicious of every word and every movement of staff and residents at every facility. I am aware that we are their advocates and guardians, not to mention their protectors and their voices. But, in my mom’s case, I would have had to fit her with a GoPro. “People” stole from her, broke her things, hid in her closet, came through her walls...it was pathetic and still breaks my heart. But I visited the facility often, came to know their procedures and staff and came to trust them over the time she was there.
I am sending you peace and positive thoughts while you deal with this. I understand how you feel.
Sadly, your mother-in-law may have been raped in the past and this trauma is real, even if she wasn't raped in the nursing home.
Drowning - I’d suggest that whomever is MILs dpoa / mpoa send a letter to the DON (director of nursing) to ask for a care plan meeting for mom. In the letter do a brief recap of the concerns with dates and ask DON to extend attendance to whomever she determines also needs to be there. As an aside on this, in my experience the DON is the power center for a NH; I’d leave it up to her to request to other staff that they need to be at meeting. All family to attend and somebody gets a full copy of the police report and distributes copies to all. There needs to a firm plan as to how to deal with the existing situation and what to be done if a claim of rape were to happen again. If part of the care plan is mil has to do a rape kit, then it’s going to need to happen or she will be viewed as non-compliant for care.
Police being called again to the NH will be a real issue for the NH.
NH can - if need be - find reasons like “we cannot provide the level of care needed” to send a 30 Day Notice on a resident. Resident expressing rape fantasies may need a geriatric psych evaluation and a care plan determined. That is something to be discussed at the meeting. This NH may not have a system to do psych evaluation so MIL will need to move to one that does.
If you could let us know what happens. Thanks.
I would think if a sick individual was going to rape a vulnerable, elderly woman that he would do it at the facility and wouldn't go through the trouble of taking her off the property to a hotel. Also, if there were other residents involved wouldn't they have said something?
Sometimes multiple rape victims are triggered into having flashbacks during the actual rape - so she could even have been re-experiencing an old assault as flashbacks DURING a recent assault. Alternatively, she could be having flashbacks to multiple assaults after the fact, which are coming to her all together in a jumble. With dementia at play, it's hard to imagine she would be able to sort out which parts might have happened recently and which parts were flashbacks.
Rape in NHs is more of a problem than anyone ever wants to admit to. Most of the time older people are not believed because of their confusion, and it's very hard to prosecute because of that.
Sometimes what rape victims need is to just be believed, to have someone say, "I believe you."
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