Separating my in-laws. Any advice or experience?
We are going to have to separate my husband's parents in the next week. She is going to go to Memory Care--in the same complex just a different building, and he will move to a smaller room in the same house he is in. He is ready for it--longing for it. She has become increasingly incoherent, uncooperative, angry, lashing out at him. He calls us in tears often. He has dementia, but not to the extent she does. She is not herself enough to really understand or remember if we were to tell her today. To help with the angst we are not going to tell her until closer to move day. I know that this will be difficult. In her semi-lucid moments she will be very angry with us and with him. They have been married for 58 years, so this will be a big change, even though it's very needed for both their sakes. Has anyone been through this and can you give us any pointers? Things we can say or do to help with the transition?
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He has mourned this loss, but is happy now that she's calm and he can visit. He does not have the reasoning ability to understand the cause--says he's never known anyone with this disease before, and doesn't understand that she can't "get over it". *sigh* BUT he's making progress and is not calling daily anymore in tears.
After a hellacious year of managaing all this, my husband and I took a MUCH NEEDED vacation last week. We went to Florida and stayed with family, and were not "on call" for his parents. My BIL in VA was able to field all the calls and deal with that, with the understanding that if hands on care was needed then my adult sons who live here would step in and do what needed to be done. Fortunately nothing was needed. We decided we are going to do that once a month for a week at a time. BIL will field all calls, and if there is a hands on need of assistance, my husband will deal with the situation. I think that will really ease a lot of my husbands stress, and subsequently mine. ;-)
Thank you for all your advice and support.
Oh, my gosh. She certainly does not hate her spouse. Big hugs ((( ))).
Don’t tell her, just let the staff handle the move. Then the first time you visit, make a big deal about what a nice room it is, or look at all the sunlight you get, or look how much closer you are to whatever.
They become like children and need to be handled that way.
I had the same problem with my mum and dad. Mum had advanced Alzheimer’s and Dad had Vascular Dementia. She became very abusive and lashed out a lot at my Dad even though he is blind as well and hard of hearing. She disrupted his sleep every night as well and he needed a break. They were in a Nursing Home after I had to admit defeat trying to look after both of them.
We got a separate room for Dad on a different floor. He still spent a lot of his day with Mum but knew he had somewhere safe and peaceful to retreat to. We thought that Mum would react badly to the move but she didn’t. We never mentioned that he had a separate room and she forgot what normal was. She had a new normal. If she asked where he was we just said he had gone for a walk and would be back soon and this satisfied her. The staff said this as well and eventually she stopped asking.
I had to move my dad to memory care after mom died. I was dreading it but I just told him there was a better room available and moved stuff in while aides distracted him in the dining room. Mom died in April and he ocassionally asks about her. I tell him she’s in therapy, we’ll see her later and he’s good with that.