Moving Mom to memory care

mutterbear4

Hi there. I'm new on this message board and would love to hear any ideas on 'fiblets' to get my mom into memory care. She is a very proud woman who is completely opposed to moving. She has refused to let helpers in her house. She currently lives alone. She was rated as stage 5 entering stage 6 dementia by the speech pathologist. I'd love to hear how anyone else got their LO to memory care. Thank you!

mariered

I live in Queens, NY which is one of the five boroughs. It is very difficult to get your mom into a memory care facility in NYC. My husband is now in one, but we met barrier after barrier, as most nursing homes do not have a memory care area in their facility. I am not talking about assisted living as that is very very expensive, but a nursing home where medicare and medicaid are accepted. It is definitely a process. My husband is now in mod. to adv. dementia and I could not care for him at home, as the psychiatrist said, absolutely not. I can advise you on how to go about it but I am not sure of the rules in where you live.

MN Chickadee

Usually we can't give the PWD any notice. You may have to do all the prep behind the scenes and final touches while someone else takes her out for the day. We got the room ready ahead of time and took the last of the furniture while mom was at her day program, then picked her up and went straight there. It's difficult for everyone involved but waiting for her to agree was never going to happen, her mind was too compromised to understand her needs and deficits. We just pulled up to the facility, had lunch together, and by that time mom's loop was so short she didn't remember how she got there or where she was. We told her the doctor wanted her to stay here a few days. No big goodbye, we let the staff take over with distracting her and slipped out. If your mother has some other health issues it might be a good cover. Doctor wants you to stay in this "rehab" facility a few days for your bad hip or to get stronger or to monitor your heart condition or whatever. Most of us have to call it a temporary stay for a long time until they settle in. If she ever lands in the hospital that is also a good opportunity for the transition, go straight to MC instead of home and call it "rehab" and blame the doctor. You will have to finesse the situation and figure out what fiblets will work and stick to them. Some people go with a problem at the house. Maybe it needs to be fumigated or the heat or AC is not working but you can stay here until it's fixed.

Shan

I can share what worked and didn’t work for us when my sisters and I moved our mom from AL to MC. We knew telling her would not be an option because she still doesn’t think she has any deficits and would refuse to go. We also knew we couldn’t let her see us packing or preparing for the move because of the same reason. Therefore, we had our mom stay at one sister’s house starting early morning so I and my other local sister could pack her entire AL apartment, the movers arrived to move all the boxes and furniture, we unpacked and set up her MC room and called the sister visiting with mom just before dinner to let her know we were done and she could bring mom to her new home. That part worked very well. It was a long tiring process but we accomplished it without our mom getting upset until it was time for her to come to the new facility. The one step we forgot to prepare was the back story or fiblet to explain why she wasn’t going to her AL apartment, so the sister who was caring for her the day of the move had to wing it on her own. This is where our plan fell miserably apart and my caution to anyone who has to navigate this difficult transition. My sister told her the only thing she could think of at the time, she said that the owner of her apartment building changed the rules about pets being allowed and he no longer allows dogs in the building so her option was either re-home her dog or move somewhere that allows dogs. What happened is she used a negative false event as the excuse and it backfired terribly. My mom showed up crying, having an anxiety attack and clutching her beloved dog because she thought someone tried to take her dog away and kicked her out of her home because she wouldn’t give him up. It was too late to retract the back story that was told to her and now three months later she still is triggered with a fake memory of being physically thrown out of her home by a terrible man who hates her dog. Of course none of it really happened but to her it is as real as the nose on her face and it causes her considerable pain and she often tells the story which has taken on a life if it’s own as she continues to add to the details. I’ve had staff tell me how sorry they are about what happened to our mom because she’s telling this made up story to everyone she meets. It has become a major obsession and trigger for her that I often have to try to distract her from when I visit still. So, long story short, plan your fibs carefully and try to not choose situations that will trigger traumatic false memories. Keep the reason short and not related to negative situations that might be a trigger for your LO.

Mari T

When the time came for me to move my Mom from her home (she was an exit-seeking risk/advanced dementia at that point), at the advice of care workers, I explained that she was going on a short trip with my brother and me, and we would spend the day together before meeting some new friends of ours. I told her that we were meeting our new friends in another town and that they were going to help us during a 'temporary stay.' It was tough because during the drive she was accusing me of duping her and for 'committing her.' I reassured that no one was duping her and that we wanted to make sure she was well taken care of with some new friends of ours. It was important that a nurse liaison was there immediately upon arrival to provide additional support in the likely case she got upset about the new surroundings. We all kept reassuring her that we wanted her to be safe and that she would be around more people on a daily basis making new friends. After the tricky first day, it did become easier as she started to meet other people. For about a week, it did help that we were there regularly to try and adjust her to a new routine, set up her space with photographs that would help her memories, and engage her as a distraction to the big change. She did eventually stop accusing us of tricking her. It's a tough transition but some 'fiblets' help to eventually get there.