What is the difference between Memory Care and being in a Long Term Care facility?

LTC is an umbrella term that refers to care services based on the needs of the recipient. MC is one type of LTC. Based on your short list of symptoms, your aunt is probably in MC now. Ask the facility to be specific about the care she's receiving.

TR,

My mother's MC told me that they could handle my mother's needs until a point where either there needs to be care for bedsores, or long-term IV Meds administration.

She is on Palliative Care from Hospice.

MJ1929, we just admitted my mother to memory care. She is still walking but we are, as agreed to by administration, expecting to age her there, with the assistance of hospice. However, already I have concerns about the care she will receive, especially after she becomes bedridden. From your perspective, what is the advantage to leaving her in memory care versus moving her to a nursing home, down the road?

Every state is different. My MIL went from AL Memory Care to Skilled Nursing Memory Care in New York (because her needs had intensified). We then moved her to South Carolina and she was placed in AL Memory Care (in a facility with multiple levels of care). In South Carolina ALMC is apparently a higher level of care (meaning more advanced dementia needs) than in New York. We visited and were well acquainted with all levels of care in New York, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

Just read your profile looking for clues.

Don't use puppy pads on any furniture humans use. They work by containing a chemical that attracts the puppy to them, and once wet with urine this chemical can do an older person's skin a power of no good. I only heard about this a few months ago, it was certainly news to me, but it's quite true. Use 'Dry Nites' or peapods or kylies or whatever brand you like as long as it's for humans.

Anyway. Back to the ltc/mc debate.

The long history does matter, unfortunately; because the assessment of your aunt's needs should have looked at it very carefully.

Long term care should be adaptable to the person's physical support needs as they change, and should also be able to accommodate loss of some cognitive and sensory abilities; but memory care is primarily focused on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing of people who are living with dementia and therefore progressively losing all of their functional abilities - often with comparatively little physical impairment.

In old fashioned terms: would you *primarily* describe your aunt as being elderly, frail, or mentally frail?

Memory care is usually a step up from Assisted living. We have one near me. The residents start out in AL but get beyond what an AL can do for them. Its usually private pay and can be cheaper than LTC. Where I live, Medicaid may pay for it after at least 2 yrs of private pay. When I was looking for a place for my Mom, it cost 7k for memory care and almost 10k for LTC. Price is different in different areas. The northern part of the state prices would be higher.

If Aunt is settled in where she is and you are happy with the facility, I would not move her. Changes are hard on people who suffer from a Dementia.

If she "cannot walk on her own" then this is why she is in LTC. Memory care is for people who are not bed-bound, are still physically able to get around competently, but who cannot perform ADLs without a lot of help, or who endanger themselves by wandering out of the facility. LTC is usually a medical necessity. MC is a cognitive necessity.