She's been there since mid-June and requires assistance with transferring. I think it's because there's a new ED and she's clearing out all of the seniors with higher levels of care. They are concerned about their acuity rankings. Can they do this? They say put her in SNF.
Moving her is a big deal and I get your resistance to do it, but things change on a dime with the elderly. It is a constant mode of evaluate and adjust.
I wish you luck in finding a new place that fits all of your moms needs. We have had to downsize my moms things several times. First when I sold her home and moved her into assisted living and then again when we moved her into memory care and then again when we moved from private pay memory care to medicaid accepting memory care. Their world keeps getting smaller and smaller and their need for assistance and care keeps getting bigger and bigger.
There were levels of care within MC, and by the time we were able to visit her on a regular basis, her needs had become both difficult for her AND her very caring staff.
Through the kindness and concern of the MC staff, she continued to live there until it became obvious to all of us that her presence WAS distressing to other MC residents who had fared through the disease better than she had, and she was moved to the next door SNF, where she lived for a year in hospice care.
What grieved me was that she’d failed as much as she had, and that year was certainly the most difficult, but the decision to move her was clearly the correct one.
If the new ED has come into a place which isn’t very attractive for new residents, perhaps she really is ‘clearing out all of the seniors with higher levels of care’. It’s a sensible business decision, and AL is a business. Unfortunate, but true.
It is fortunate that there are very limited reasons one can legally discharge someone from a nursing home (due to federal law, which is typically also reiterated in state laws). Assisted living facilities are governed state - by -state, so one needs to start with that state's statutes. Some are more protective, others less so.
If an AL feels a resident is a 2 person assist or a huge fall risk, they are not approved to live there or asked to leave as a resident. This is for the safety of the resident and to insure they won't be sitting there for an hour waiting for transfer assistance to the toilet if the facility is understaffed.
Everyone seems to see nefarious reasons behind the rules an AL creates, yet by asking a resident to go into a higher level of care, they're losing a huge check each month. Its mind boggling how much an elder can decline, mobilty wise, in a 3 month period.
Get mom into a situation where she can be properly cared for, that's my suggestion. Good luck.
We definitely don't want to burden our adult children if we end up needing day-to-day care.
We had to move our stepmother from AL to MC as she had mentally become beyond the point of staying there.
You may not see all that happens early in the morning or in the evening so it may appear to you that her needs have not changed when in fact they have.
It may even be a matter of time. If she required 1 person to assist her to get up and that took 5 minutes but now it takes 1 person 15 minutes so they get another person to assist that takes staff away from others that need help.
Depending on where you live ALF can not use equipment to make the process faster and easier so helping a person can be m ore of a safety risk for both the resident and the staff.
SNF can use equipment to make transfers safer, easier on the resident as well as safer for both staff and resident.
I would suggest that you look at the contract it may spell out what can and can not be done. It is very possible that your LO should have been in SNF from the get go.
The rent may stay the same for a year but its usually 30 day notice when it comes to Mom leaving on her own or the AL is saying we cannot care for her.
In my brother's ALF the line they walked was fine indeed. Many residents, including my brother, were overall mentally and physically fit. There were certain some residents in W/C. And there were the usual levels of care from I to IV. There were some folks with early dementia (my brother had a dx. of probable early Lewy's Dementia), but when anything progressed to needing more care, or as disruptive to the community cottage in general, moves to more comprehensive and better staffed care was required. They tried very hard for families who could not afford moves to MC, but when residents complained overmuch of the needs and requirements of a single resident, or the workers said that they were not well staffed enough to meet that resident's needs, a move was required.
Basically the answer is that they like CAN ask for this move. Your best hope is to TRY to find out EXACTLY what the problem is, and see if it can be remedied in some way. If not, I am afraid there isn't a lot of choice. I am sorry and surely do wish you good luck.
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