Packing for move to assisted living tips

MizRuby

Hello-

My LO will be moving to her own small apartment in assisted living in a few weeks. 

I’m looking for your tips, tricks etc. What to take vs what not to take. Any advice to make the tradition go smoothly. Things you wish you had or had not done. 

She will have a microwave and refrigerator kitchenette and her own private bath.  

Already on our to do list. 

Hire a mover, Make her space homey, only bring essential kitchen items, name tags for clothing. 

Thank you. 

SusanB-dil

We are not to this point quite yet, but it appears you have it pretty much thought out.

Sounds like you got this - hope it all goes as planned, and smoothly.

JJ401

Keep the good jewelry at home or it will disappear into the ether.

Don’t bring anything you would be upset to lose. Even in the best facilities items wander. Your LO may carry it out of her space, or a resident visitor may walk off with it. Most items if marked with a name eventually return, so mark everything moveable. If LO wears glasses, mark them too. 

BassetHoundAnn

Pack the things that will bring her the most comfort. For my mom this included: family pictures to hang on the walls, pillows and plush animals (they say plushies provide comfort to dementia sufferers), some of her knickknack and glassware collection, a wreath to hang on the door with her name (so she could identify her room and door). Heaps of blankets and hand-knit afghans. A couple favorite lamps. 

As her dementia progressed the things that brought her the most comfort changed. She no longer recognizes most of the family photos, although there is one photo of her and her sisters as young ladies that she still loves to talk about. 

There are some old pictures of angels we hung on the wall that she still identifies with her mother. She still coos with adoration at two paintings that a friend from work painted for her many decades ago. This was a surprise. I had no idea when we moved her that those paintings meant so much to her. Even in her advanced state she still remarks almost daily that they still give her pleasure. 

And she still loves looking at the lamps although she has lost the ability to turn them on. 

It's definitely been a learning curve discovering the things that she loves and remembers and which bring her comfort. As her Alzheimer's has progressed the things that bring her comfort has been a moving target.  

I labeled everything with her name because things often disappear from her room. I even taped her name to the back of framed pictures. 

I bought these labels from Amazon which I sewed into all her clothing, sheets, towels, etc.:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KWFHSCS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

May flowers

Some things we did that I thought worked well for my FIL’s moving to MC. We arranged his room very similar to his room here. We set up an Amazon echo - in your LO’s case if she is lucid enough, she may be able to get used to chatting with you that way now and might make it more helpful down the road - I like that it allowed me to drop in one way and check on him. I hung a large plaque with my FIL’s name and a rooster on his door to help him find his room. That worked surprisingly well for a while. Another thing we did is we got a music player from the Alzheimer’s store and uploaded all his songs on it. It had just one large on off button and he was able to work it into late stage 6. Put her favorite snacks and treats in her room. 

I kept decor simple - a few pictures, photo albums, and his favorite things, his bowling trophy, a quilt his mother made, favorite mug, anything that feeds memories. 

I used iron on name labels which saved a lot of time. But I will tell you, the staff at some of these places never look. My FIL still came home with half his clothes missing, and clothing, sheets, blankets from other residents with their names on them ! Also, I sent only just what he needed - no more than a weeks worth of clothes and underwear because things were going missing so much. That has kept us from having to buy a lot of new clothes for him. 

Be careful of sending anything valuable. We sent a favorite antique chair of his and it is long gone, sadly.

MN Chickadee

Assume that everything you send will be lost or broken and be pleasantly surprised if it survives. Between other residents wandering in and the PWD getting destructive it happens. My mother disassembled lamps and chairs in her spare time. Make sure any photos are not the only copy, only send art you can part with. We brought a lot of stuff for mom's room in the beginning and focused on the idea that making her room nice would make the transition easier. I was trying to put my energy into something I could control. In the end the only thing that mattered was time. It just took time to adjust. I would focus on making it pleasant but not get too focused on minutia.