I didn't notice it before because I was so impressed with how clean and well run my mom's place is and the great ratio of caregivers to residents, but it seems mom is kind of the odd one out. She has moderate severe dementia, but still talks and walks. Most of the people where she lives need a lot of assistance in their wheelchairs and are a lot older, and it's a mix of those with and without dementia. Those without dementia don't associate with mom, and those with it are in a later stage of dementia and don't talk. Mom looks at those with more dementia, like why am I here, and those without it she doesn't really notice. I feel like she's a fish out of water, but where she's living is a well run place with many caregivers to help her when she needs it. Anyone else feel this way? I just want mom to not only be well cared for, but also feel comfortable. It's hard to check off all the boxes, but I am extremely grateful she is getting excellent care.
Your situation reminds me of my own. My mom was 90 with early stage Alzheimer's when we moved her from her home of 47 years into an ALF back in 2015. She was just like your mom. Even when she turned 95 in February she was still walking and talking until the facility had a large number of COVID cases. My mom was severely dehydrated and contracted the virus along with a couple of other things due to what I believe was neglect while they were busy trying to beat back the media who were reporting their high number of cases on every local channel.
After leaving the hospital and rehab facility, we moved her to a new facility into their memory care unit. However, she is no longer mobile and is under hospice care within the facility. They are as good of a facility as we're going to find and we're very impressed with it. The website pictures are beautiful, it's clean, her apartment has laminate wood-like flooring, molding around the baseboards and communication is great.
I think where you and probably myself (at one time) get hung up, is wanting our mom to do well with "people." We don't like to see them left out or not wanting to be social. I sure hope you don't move her especially after you've said "it's hard to check off all the boxes, but I am extremely grateful she is getting excellent care." That is the most important thing right now - the care. You could move her to what would probably be a less desirable place and the "fitting in" issue would still be there plus the care wouldn't be as good.
My mom doesn't want to be sociable - she's tired and just wants to be left alone. Because she is in the memory care unit and with hospice, she is getting a lot of interaction through the caregiver staff, the Memory Care Director, the hospice nurse and gal who comes to give her showers 3x a week as well as the Activity Director who brings her dog and a puppy she just had a litter of. They don't give up on trying to get her out and into another setting which I appreciate too. They could have just thrown in the towel and let her be. I have come to a place of acceptance with that and maybe that's what you'll need to do. If her place has an Activity Director, maybe you can talk with them to see if they have any ideas to help get her out into a more social setting depending on what their COVID protocol is.
Best wishes to both you and your mom!
So, the moral of my story is that my mother is not going to feel 'comfortable' anywhere she goes; she will always find a reason to complain or be unhappy. For us, it's impossible to check off all the boxes; such a utopian place doesn't exist, to the best of my knowledge. MY goal, on the other hand, is to ensure that she's properly cared for and looked after by a team of people who are compassionate and well trained.
In my mother's case, she's a world champion complainer.........I don't know if that's the case with your mother. I often say I can put my mother up at the Palace of Versailles and she will complain that the gold is tarnished. People like her are impossible to please so you stop trying. In your case, you have to weigh the pros and cons. NO Memory Care is perfect; there will be issues wherever you go. You can check out other places to see what you think, but keep in mind the main goal is finding great care for her..........the rest is minor by comparison, you know?
Wishing you the best of luck!!!
"...the others are all 'stupid morons or crazy' and she makes a circle around her ear with her forefinger to describe them." LOL (not laughing at the people your mom was referring to) - I was picturing her doing that. My mom will do that referring to herself when she has forgotten something!
The MC door would close and lock if she ever got her w/c too close. The other residents varied in level of dementia. Mom's roommate would yell at Mom and anyone else if she thought they were "getting into her things". There really wasn't any resident that Mom could hold a conversation with so Mom sat in her w/c out in the hallway most of the time. (She couldn't see or hear the TV very well and could not use the remote control.) The nursing staff and housekeeping staff talked with her almost everytime they walked by and she really enjoyed that.
It still grieves me that Mom didn't have someone (another resident) she could talk with and have long conversations with like she did on the Rehab Unit, but her wandering made it unsafe for her to stay on that unit anymore. When Mom died, the LPN told me that she would always remember how Mom would sit in the hall, eating her M&Ms, talking with everyone who walked by. The housekeeping staff sent a sympathy card stating that they will miss visiting with her while they did their work.
Your Mom is getting excellent care so be content with that. It is never easy having a LO with dementia. {{{HUGS}}}
That brought tears to my eyes. I'm so sorry that's how things turned out for your mom and especially having to be transferred to the MC unit and ending up with an unkind roommate (to put it mildly) leaving her to have to go sit in the hallway just to get away from her.
I'm sure it made you feel good to get the sympathy card from the staff - your mom still made a positive impact on other people to the very end and that is something to be proud of as her daughter!
I think how a place functions is all about how the organization chooses to run it. I was extremely lucky to find this place for my mother because I had no idea what I was doing, but I was referred to it by APlaceforMom.com, and their recommendation was spot-on.
I'm so glad your mother is in such a great place - it's nice to hear a positive story!
Often if nothing fits right, the best thing to do is to pick the least lousy option. For my mom this might mean living in a memory care and blowing out of it by mowing over residents and staff by her sheer force of nature. Then I’ll have to move her somewhere else.
I really feel for you on this one because I’m living it. If a place is clean and the staff is kind and knowledgeable, that is a huge plus. I know this isn’t great advice but I want to acknowledge that this is really, really hard, especially if the senior was difficult before the dementia. It feels like there’s no win. We just do the best we can with what is possible and available.
I’m rooting for you!
You would be amazed.
I'm not sure how long your mom has been at this facility but the pandemic has really thrown a wrench into things. Isolation and depression are really running rampant in these facilities due to all of the mandated restrictions. You could also have her seen by the psychiatric provider who comes to the facility at least weekly (usually anyway), to see if she might benefit by a trial of medication for anxiety or depression - if on interview it seemed appropriate. It takes time to get used to a new environment. Perhaps you can meet with the social worker and/or the activities director to see if there are any female patients at the facility who are functioning at or near your mom's level whom she might be able to make friends with if they had the opportunity to spend some time together. Kind of like match-making but for friendship and to decrease feelings of isolation. I hope this helps. Sounds like you are to be congratulated on your placement decision for your mom. These aren't big issues. Work with them to see what can be done to make her feel a bit more at home and needed, useful, and valued.
Then COVID hit. Right now, we are finally allowed to visit her in her room, but residents are not allowed to congregate in public spaces per the laws right now in Massachusetts. I do see the 'pub' ladies as I walk through the building to get to my Mom's floor and they always ask how she is doing. Mom's memory is getting worse now, but if they open it up again, I will try again to bring her at least to the Happy Hour (with non alcoholic wine) to see how she fares.
By doing this, the residents also began to understand that Dementia is not something they can "catch" from our loved ones. Where they once would not set foot on the "2nd" floor, they had actually started going upstairs for joint activities like nail painting day and some had volunteered to go visit with some other residents.
My advice would be to see if your facility allows such interactivity with your help so your mom can be among more social situations. I believe it helped my mom's dementia not decline as quickly as it could have since she had some social stimulation other than just the Assistants on her floor. Once COVID hit and they were all quarantined in their rooms totally for 4 months with little social interaction, it took a toll on mom's abilities, but now that we are able to visit twice a week again, I see her improving. She will probably never return to where she was before COVID. I'm hoping that one day this will be over and she can return to engaging in both activities on her floor and downstairs.
Mom still looks at some of the residents on her floor and "feels bad" for some of them and wonders why they wear the same clothes every day (I'm not sure that all of them do, but since Mom doesn't remember what she wore yesterday, I'm sure she doesn't remember what they wore either :)
So, I resisted putting my Mom on the Memory Floor, but did it; found a way to give her a break a few days a week to engage socially with the ladies in the pub; and now she does belong on the Memory Floor and at least 5 residents from the Assisted Living pub group have moved up to my Mom's floor.
Not sure if this helps, but if your facility doesn't allow interaction with your help (I always had to take her and bring her back), then I would look around for one that does.
Know you are doing your best. love.
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