Started a home health aide for my mom. I'm doing the right thing, right?

jenspeed

Hi - my mom is 87 and living with dementia. I arranged to have a home health aide come 4x/week. Today is day 2. I know it's the right thing to do and wow, it feels really hard. I guess I'm coming here for reassurance.

My mom is about 6.5 hours away, single, and I'm her only child. We have no other family nearby. I work full time and have a 5yo at home. While my mom is in ok physical shape and could probably take care of most activities of daily living, she has limited short term memory and has cognitive struggles. I was doing what I could from afar - paying bills, sending in food, talking to doctors, etc - and it became clear that she was forgetting to bathe, take her medication, eat, etc. I wanted to believe my scaffolding was enough and it's clearly not.

I have a geriatric care manager and she recommended a live in aide or a MCF. My mom is very resistant to both as she's quite independent. She's always wanted to live out her life in her apartment.

So far, the aide has been there 2.5 hours and I've already received 3 calls of who is this person and why is she here. The care manager also suggested a fib that the aide was connected to the woman who cleans for my mom - and that has caused more confusion and distress.

The aide says all of this is normal, and I also feel bad for this woman having to work in this situation.

Sigh... mostly venting and am feeling grateful to have found this community. This caregiving is really hard and I know it's not getting any easier.

Jeanne C.

Hi - getting the aide in is a great move. I hate to say, she may need more care quickly. Some dementias can progress quickly and they all seem to move erratically. I don't think this board gets a lot of traffic so I recommend posting on the general caregiver board to get more responses.