Can anyone share experience with "memory care" facilities?

The nursing home that my Mom was in has two sections: Four Halls set up in a square with an interior courtyard and doors to the outside concrete "walking paths" on each hall.  This is where Mom went first because she was receiving PT & OT.  Once she started wheeling her w/c around the square looking for my Brother and myself, she was moved to the Memory Care Unit. 

The MCU is shaped like a T with a central hall for those residents who have cognitive problems (dementia/Alzheimer's) who do not /cannot wander too much nor become upset or belligerent if prevented from leaving the unit.  The door to the MCU is OPEN, but CLOSES whenever a resident wearing a device on their person or w/c comes within 10 feet of that door.  Mom was on this hall for the last year of her life and she would wheel up and down the hall, look out the dining room and hallway windows or she sat in one of the small alcoves and talked to anyone who walked by.  She could not understand why the door would close as she got near it. 😉

The top of the T is divided into two LOCKED MCU halls for resident who have a tendency to wander often and/or become upset if they are prevented from leaving the MC Unit.

Mom and some of the calmer MCU residents were taken to activities in other parts of the facility by the Activity Department staff, such as monthly birthday parties, "Movie Afternoon", to listen to music or visit with local school children.  The Activity Staff are always with the residents whenever they leave the MCU. 

Families are encouraged to visit the MCU residents and can eat meals with them in the dining room or in a private "Family Dining Room" that is located in the center part of the facility.  We ate with Mom a few times in the Resident Dining Room (Price $5.00 each).  We also brought food in and ate in the Family Dining  Room a few times.  For Thanksgiving Dinner, we had KFC--Mom's favorite. I brought her china dishes and put Thanksgiving decorations on the table. 
Some of the families visit on Football Saturday and watch the local college football games together OR they play cards with other families/friends while their Loved Ones either play cards also or watch the card games.  There is a LOCKED and fenced courtyard that the families can take their LO (as long as the family stays with their LO while outside.)

How your Mother reacts to the Memory Care Unit depends on how mobile she is--does she walk with a walker or does she use a wheelchair? /  how social she is--does she talk with other residents or their families or your family now? / how well she understands the activities--watching TV or a movie--can she actively participate? / how you react to your Mother being in a "Locked Unit".

You state that you visit your Mother "in the ASF four or five times a week" and I am wondering if your visits are upsetting your Mother because every time you visit you are reminding your Mother that SHE CANNOT GO HOME WITH YOU.

My Mom would get upset whenever I left because she could not go home with me so I decreased the number of visits which allowed her to become more acclimated to the facility routine and allowed the nursing staff to become "friends" with Mom.   

With a Ratio of 5 residents to 1 staff member on the Memory Unit, I think that you can decrease the number of times that you visit to 2 or 3 per week.  Thus allowing your Mother to become part of the Memory Care Unit and feel like she LIVES there.

Cedarlove, with reference to "locked into the facility" is to think that it is no different than living at home. We all lock our exterior doors during the day.

My Dad moved from Independent Living over to the facility's Memory Care. I used a "therapeutic fib" to get Dad to agree to move by telling him it would be cheaper. Dad has always been fugal so that was music to his ears. Thankfully all of his 200 books and his bookcases did fit, so he was happy in his cocoon of reference material :)

The facility had a Staff person at the front desk by the front door. She would unlock the door if a patient was going out with a friend/family member. The place was 3 stories and set up like a hotel, so there was plenty of space to roam within the building.

Memory Care had one whole floor and their own dining room. At night the elevators to the other floors were closed off to the Memory Care floor. So that way if someone was prone to wander during the night, the Staff would only have one floor to look for that person.

Dad was happy staying on the Memory Care floor, and watching local 24 hour TV or reading. Only activity he would go to was music. And his physical therapy which he really enjoyed. He liked the Staff. And oh how he enjoyed all his meals :)

I realize everyone is different. If one is a social butterfly and always been out and about, this could be a difficult time to change to a new normal.

I appreciate your reply very much. The memory care unit is in the same facility she is already in, just on the second floor. I'm hoping it will be exactly as you said -- more security and more interaction. We have visited her in the ASF four or five times a week and are told she's unhappy all the time when we're not there, but calms down when we come. The staff to patient ratio is 20 to 1 on assisted living and 5 to 1 (staff to residents) on the memory unit, so I think it's good, I just hope it works for us.

My mom was in Memory Care for about two years. She passed in 2016. This was not one of those “resort” facilities, but it was well-run and the residents were well taken care of. At first, my mother did realize she was locked in, but it didn’t seem to upset her. She walked the hall and spent time sitting near the nurses’ station, which seemed to be the activity “hub”. If the alarm went off, she was not upset. She always felt that “everyone else” on her floor was in worse shape than she was. 😊. As her dementia progressed, which unfortunately it always does, she became unaware of her surroundings and was lost to hallucinations and delusions.

How your mother will accept this move will depend a lot on you. If you keep things positive and you, yourself accept the move as necessary, it will make things easier for all of you.

Has your mother's current ALF recommended a particular memory care unit? If so, what do you know about the place?

Some of them are *fantastic* and will be a huge improvement in giving your mother a new sense of security and of being understood. I hope that's what hers will be like, but they do vary. Have you been able to visit some?