My mother has her good day and her bad days, but lately she has been more restless. What can I do for her?

Wow!!!!! A lot is going on. Slow down and take some time to really consider Mon and her feeling and her needs. She broke her back she did go in to a comma. She is alive and wanrt ot feel alive. I just keeps it real..........The thought of any institution would drive me crazy.....someone telling me that my last result.......woud make me shut down... Can we take a moment and look for other obtions. I can think of some.......What about down sizing the Condo or trade for a condo more equiped. In-Home care programs are available and Medicare and medicaid can help....some private insurance offer respite care. Certified Nursing Assistants are available for care. If my family that Loves me some much had to time and schedule times to see me i would be worried... She is restless because she has a lot on her mind and dont know what is next........what did she do before the accident.......well lets do it again,,,,,,,how about making her priority even on the brothers birthday and bring the party to her. she needs to know thtat thing are okay even if change is coming. she needs to know that family is there......let not even talk about the child that didn't come.....he will have to deal with that......but make mom feel okay about and not something is wrong because he didn;t come. Paitence my young caregivers is what our babyboomers need.

i would keep her the 10 minutes away, UNLESS you are not able to provide the visitations any longer. Where ever she lives within a skilled facility her needs will be looked after. We all will probably have this to look forward to. Hopefully we are NOW where we want to be IF and When this should happen to us. Good luck.

picture, I am not sure if you were addressing me or hopeful 2011 but to answer you question, restlessness is a state of mind that says, I don't want to be here, I want to go home and/or do the things I used to do. In hopeful2011, she stated that a move to Arizona to a Conv/rehab was an alternative to help her with her rehabilitation and give her a different group of people to be with. Moving her with a broken back is done by professionals that know how make sure that everything is done properly. hopeful2011 seems to be looking at different alternatives to help her mother and the questions I posed to her are just that, questions that help a person look at what is in the best interest of the parent.

Could you please tell me which is the question.
Help with the restlessness while she is bed/wheelchair bound.
or
Moving her around. And how do you do so with a broken back?

I am confused here.

I had both parents with Alzheimer's and Vascular Dementia and after talking with the professional, doctors, social workers, etc., the only thing I can say is that I had to decide what was in the best interest of my parents.The family looked at moving our parents, listening to our parents wants, working with the restlessness and unhappy feelings and then decided to take the advice from the professionals. We decided to leave dad where he was and after some time, he acclimatized to his surroundings and started to get involved with the programs and the people, the nurses and the doctors. He was angry at first but he did get used to it. Once in a while he would try to leave but soon realized that he could not. It has been a hard choice but we found that by using the professionals to help our parents with hard decisions, it took a lot of stress off of our shoulders. Ask yourself, is it the best move? Would she be better off there or where she is? How long do you anticipate the healing process to take and what have you considered for the future health care? Have you contacted all of the family for their input? Do the people in Arizona have the same compassion level that you have for your mom and would they do the same job as you are doing? Will you be able to visit her during the 3-6 months she will be gone? Try to put the situation in the perspective of what would she want and how will she cope with the change? What is best for her medically and physically? My dad was only in long term care for 10 months and I gave him the quality of life he deserved and he passed very peacefully and I was extremely happy with the decisions we made and the staffing that ensured dad's daily life was filled and content while he was there. Now I need to make these same decision for my mom. I am listening to the professionals for her care and what types of decision are in the best interest for her. Good luck with you decisions and hopefully she will stay healthy for a long time. Love Vickie.

I only had one move with my mom, we used Southwest Airlines and they were wonderful. I got her to agree to make the trip because a local rehab hosptial agreed to admit her. She too was hoping it was a stepping stone to going home to live on her own again, though at that point I knew the best we would get was good enough for assisted living instead of skilled nursing. But she wanted to try, and they even met us at the airport with their van. Some of the transfers were very difficult as she could just barely stand and pivot - we used her walker as a support and a flight attendant and I had to give her lots of help, plus we got the very front seat of the plane each flight. She even told me she wanted to do it again!

Sadly, the rehab did not work out all that well - she had a stroke and then an MI, and we ended up in skilled nursing here. She was about at the same level of function other than some language skills when all was said and done. But because I moved her, when she did finally get worse and was found to have severe and inoperable heart disease, I was able to get her into hospice and be with her when the time came. I cannot imagine what it would have been like if she had stayed 15 hours away. I hated taking her away from the nice AL where she bascially liked it pretty well, was, and the three friendly neighbors who kept visiting her at least occasionally after my Dad died, but here she had the four of us and we have at least a few good memories of things we did with her.