My mom hates her RCF and wants her cat back.

fescott

:'( about five months ago. We had to move my mom from an AFH to and RCF. She hates it. There are six other residents with varying degrees of disabilities and some with dementia. My mom has vascular dementia, and Alzheimer’s. She was diagnosed at 69 years old and will be 71 this year. since moving to the RCF, I have noticed a decline. Unfortunately, the RCF would not except her cat and so a friend of ours took the cat. My mom has held out hope that she would find a new place that could allow her to have her cat. It was always my understanding that this would be a permanent separation as heartbreaking as it was. Now the friend contacted me last week and says she wishes to surrender the cat. For the first three months that my mom lived at this new place she would go a couple of times each month to visit the cat. My fear now is having to tell her that the friend is surrendering the cat.

My mom often will call and complain about the RCF, as this is also her first time living somewhere, where she did not have her own bathroom. She has been complaining that every time she needs to use the restroom , there is feces or urine left behind in the toilet from previous users. She gets angry and upset. But there is only one care worker there at a time. The owners made a suggestion that perhaps they could move her to one of the rooms that actually has a bathroom inside. But then, when I inquired about it, they said that they were worried about doing that, fearing that my mom would start to accuse other people of dirtying her bathroom when in fact, it is her doing it.

Honestly, right now I am so lost as to what to do. I find for my own self, but I am still very much in the denial stages. Some days I am convinced she has Alzheimer’s, and other days I am thinking that this is not going to be what causes her death. I have four siblings, all of which live out of state, and none of them have been to visit her in a year.

I’m sorry, I know I am probably mentioning too many separate problems. I am signed up for a caregivers support group this Monday. Hopefully that will help as well. But any suggestions from anyone, I would be willing to accept.

MN Chickadee

Try a Joy for All robotic cat. Many PWD will take to them, even if family thinks they aren't "far gone" enough to accept it. They are cute and very life like. I would keep using therapeutic fibs on the real cat. The owner is busy or on vacation and can't visit this week. Rinse and repeat. Eventually she will move on. As for the bathroom issue, is this the only problem or is it a microcosm of bigger issues? Is the bathroom actually very dirty? If so it needs to be cleaned more! If it is truly just the bathroom controversy, have her try the new room. A staff trained in dementia should be able to redirect her from accusations about the mess. Super common behavior for dementia. I'm wondering how adept the staff is for dementia specifically and if a true memory care facility might be a better fit.

Sandias

fescott, what a stressful situation you are in. I can totally relate. I was the main caregiver for my Alzheimer’s mother for 5 years.

About the bathroom issue, dementia patients who are incontinent often have “accidents” and can really make a big mess if they’re not supervised while using the bathroom. Some of them are into fecal art too. Shudder shudder…

If you want to know for sure, you need to do unannounced visits and take a peek inside the bathroom to see for yourself. It could be a onetime incident where your mother saw a mess and it got stuck in her head so she kept repeating. Or it could be an ongoing problem. You have to find out for yourself.

From what other people have reported, small residential group homes tend to have better care than the big facilities. If your mom can afford the extra cost to have her own bathroom, I recommend she take it.

About the cat issue, I agree with Chickadee, get her a life-like cat, preferably one that looks like her cat.

Please ask the friend to surrender the cat to a no kill shelter. Or can you take the cat? Save a life!

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RoseGwen

She might like a plush cat that looks like hers. Even if she knows it isn't real, you can tell her that she can love on it and the love will get to her real cat. I don't know, I think letting her have her own bathroom might help. She might blame messes on other people at least at first but she'll hopefully become comfortable with the idea that the bathroom is her own. It's probably really hard to be in your 70s and suddenly have roommates; I can't imagine. I know my grandma is sometimes like oh my gosh I'm never by myself here. Her roommate and hallway mates are very talkative. They're so sweet and they look out for my grandma, which I appreciate more than I can tell them. But she gets overwhelmed, and I can imagine I would in that situation too.