Could he be putting the tugboat into it? From a discussion on here the other day he wont have lost it yet, he will lose it after 30 days once he's sentenced and at the moment he's still locked up not sentenced so he could possibly still be receiving it.
I'm not so sure about that she's had a traumatic event happen to her, she was in declining health before that happened and is now living on her own and hasn't got the nearly human helper monkey she had in the form of Chris.
Old Tough Birds tend to stay that way until there is a problem and then they rapidly enter a terminal decline, especially when there is a change in living circumstances like a family member passing away (or just going away like Chris has) and they spiral for a bit and then nose dive.
I can sort of see this happening to Barb starting now, she was starting to circle with her health beforehand and then Chris exposed her to a month of abuse and was her primary caretaker, who also then just disappeared from her life so double trauma, she's been on her own for the first time in decades and is in poor physical condition or at least declining condition and from what we know she's been fending for herself with little or no help and she's in no fit state to take care of herself at least correctly so I can see this compounding any other issues she has.
Part of me wonders what her medication situation is, just by age and location she's going to be on some medication and some of it will be essential or at least or condition extending if she's not taking that sort of thing correctly or Chris wasnt giving it to her correctly to begin with (I strongly suspect that's the case, likely through incpompitance but there is also the dark option he did it intentionally we still don't know) and inconsistant or unstable medical doses have odd effects on people. Especially if she is on some dementia medications those things are seriously tricky to does effectively a little too much a little to little and the medication effects are unpredictable and if the dose is inconsistently deliverd it will have the same effect and it can be worse than a bad dose (I'm not a doctor or a pharmacologist but I've read a fair bit on the subject for reasons), but I can sperg on the topic a bit if people want but I know some medical Kiwi's can fill this roll better than myself.