Touring memory care - Plan B

justbreathe2

I visited two memory care places and it is difficult for me to think about placing my DH. Both places stressed that no one is ever ready to place their love one. Just don’t wait too long before he has declined to the point where he will not be accepted. Not sure what stage that would be. My.DH can still care for himself, carry on conversations, etc. He is in moderate stage we learned last month.

It all worries me not knowing when that will happen. It will break his heart and mine too.

Biggles

I couldn’t do it to my DH or me, I know that sounds as though I am making things hard but I couldn’t do it, it would just break me in two. It may not be practical and I might have to change my mind and thinking but wherever he goes I go too, so he stays. Everyone has to do what is best for their situation but as that famous movie line says ‘the best of two weevils’ both are hard. Stay strong these are rotten decisions.

ImMaggieMae

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/235130#Comment_235130

Biggles, I have to agree. We will probably need more in-home help at some point, but wherever he goes, I go too.

Joe C.

I would suggest looking at a few more MCs, they are not all equal in the level of care they are willing to provide. Many MCs do not want to take in or KEEP residents that are in advanced decline but there are MCs that will take in residents in very late stage dementia. You need to ask question like, “can my husband age in place?”, “Can he stay if he is wheeler chair bound, needs to be hand fed, or needs to be mover with a hoyer lift.”

I placed my wife in an MC three you years ago mainly because it became unsafe for her at home. She was always trying to escape and picking up small items she came across and attempting to eat them. I knew it was only a matter of time until something bad happened. I was always the bad guy because I was the one bathing her, making her take her meds or stopping her from leaving the house. I had been taking care of her for for 4 + years 24/7 with some help but during Covid it was impossible to find additional help and I was burned out but it was still a really difficult decision to place her. Now I know that placement was the best decision for DW because she is much happier at the MC than she was at home and has really thrived there. She loves having lots of people around, both staff and other residents, she enjoys the activities especially when it involves music. When she was home I could handle all her ADL but I could not be an entertainment director on top of everything else so she was either wandering around the house or sitting in front of the TV. Now she is engaged, has friends that are on her own level and is very well cared for. I was fortunate that DW acclimated so well to the MC environment but I never would have imagined that I would know the is better off and happy there than at home.

????

My wife has moderate Alzheimer's. Her father had it also, but in a later age. He was placed in two MC after my mother in-law could no longer take care of him. My wife's Primary Doctor a couple of months ago asked me if we had a plan for if I went before my wife, what would happen to her. He so far does a pretty good job of taking care of herself at home. She does not drive anymore and has issues. She would not be able to live independently in our home if something happened to me. So that opened the door for my wife and I to have some discussions. Then we met with our daughter and son in-law and had a family meeting. The outcome was we all agreed it would be better for my wife at this stage to go to an Assisted living facility that also had memory care. That has prompted us to go visit some facilities. We have visited two, and will visit on today. They all have been acceptable to my wife and I. I will rank them in the order my wife prefers and put that information in my files. There has been some comfort that we have a plan and my wife has input to what may happen.

Mint

There are many different types of places that exist for our family members. I am not a spouse. I am a daughter.

My mother is in a place that calls itself assisted living. There they take care of patients that are pretty bad and they allow them to age in place. The place my mother is in is small but nice. It’s open and a lot of daylight in the whole facility. Everywhere you go you can see outside.

If I wanted to find things to complain about I would have no problem doing that. But instead I am extremely thankful for the facility that helps me take care of my mother and I can go there and not feel depressed. They stress to the residents that they all are a family. I have adopted them and they are my family too. I get to know as many of them as I can and I try to brighten all of their days Including the staff. This is not easy for any of us.

if your loved one is cooperative you may be able to always keep them. If my mother would’ve been cooperative with me and my sisters we would’ve took care of her. My mom had became incontinent and was refusing to wear disposable underwear and thought it was fine that and my sister and i were having to deal with it. She started becoming unable to keep her house clean and so when I went to clean one day, I had to step out for a minute and she locked me out. Thankfully, I had the keys in my pocket. But I had to run from until I beat her and was able to get the door open.

What you do need to have is a plan in place For your loved one and yourself. Today you could become unable to take care of your loved one. A pretty good percentage of caregivers die before the person they are taking care of. You may not die, but you may become in need of help for a period of time or for the rest of your life yourself. You’re going to need help from other people also in this plan. If you stay at home with this individual then you’re gonna need someone who can step in when you need it and they also are going to need to be in on the plan for if this becomes a long-term issue. You need someone who is checking in with you at least twice a day to make sure you are OK because your loved one probably will not be able to figure out if you are OK. If you ask your loved one with dementia, what would you do if the house got on fire. see what response they give you. Do you think you’re loved one would even recognize something was wrong with you and if they did what would they be able to do about it. What if they found you totally unresponsive, what if you could give them directions on how to help you would they be able to follow those directions ? Could they make a phone call and explain to the dispatcher on the other end what is needed? This disease is very hard on the individual that has it and it’s also very hard on the caregivers.

There are places where you both could live . Some places will have independent living as well as assisted living. I’ve seen were some couples one lives in independent living, and one lives in assisted-living and to me that’s kind of ideal. Where my mother is, they do not have independent living, but two people can live together in a room. So you could live there with them. There are one or two rooms there where two people are living together. I don’t think this is near as ideal, to me, but it’s way better than caring for someone alone without any advocates for either you or them.

It takes a lot of time and effort to find these places. It’s also a lot of decisions and a lot of work. It can kind of seem overwhelming for sure. I’ve mentioned this before on here and some people have commented they don’t think they would like it but I found it very helpful. It made the process much easier and less complicated for me and it was still hard enough. If you are in the United States there is a company that sells franchises called CarePatrol. They work like Insurance agents. Like you would use an insurance agent to help you with finding your insurance. You use these people to help you find a place for your family and it does not cost you. They are paid like insurance agents are paid. I was made aware of this by the case manager when my mom was in the hospital. You can also use these people when you’re at home in fact, that’s who they help the most is my understanding. You would just Google CarePatrol and then you will insert your ZIP Code and you can find out if this is available in your area. When you are in contact them you would just let them know your needs and what you’re looking for and they will know what is available in your area that could serve your needs. They will also arrange all the interviews and they go to the interviews with you but they stay out of the conversation unless they are directly asked a question. Once we were outside of the facility she would talk to us and sometime she will mention things that I had not thought about . She also asked questions about how we felt about certain things to give feedback to the facilities that she works for. I had no idea before I talked to this lady that I could get my mom into where she is. I thought she’d have to go to some depressing place cause I’ve been in a few visiting others. She told me there were two places in my town like this and we went and visited both of those and the decision was made from there. I consider that lady a friend and I know now if anything will come up in the future where I can go and get help and I’m very thankful for that.

I hope someone finds this helpful, and even if not now maybe in the future because we never know what will happen

B2ingua

I have used Care Patrol in Denver and they are very helpful. I am now working at taking my wife to a daycare once or twice a week. It is kind of a baby step. She gets to know the people and facility so if we get to a point I can't take care of her or something happens to me the kids have a place that knows her already started.

Mint

I’m glad you found them helpful too. They will also help you get your family to the facility if they can. With my mom that would’ve been impossible. She was hoping she could do that but my mom was too delusional. But she told me about a patient she visited, then she asked him if he would like to go out for a hamburger. So she took him to the facility and they had hamburger dinner and he never left and he was happy as could be. I’m sure she made someone’s families day.

FTDCaregiver1

hi JB2, I visited toured several MC sites, not sure about what you were told on about “waiting too long”, never happened to me and smacks of pressure sales tactic and/or the sites you visited don’t offer differing levels of care such as skilled nursing care. At the time, DW, apparently like your DH, qualified for MC level, sites I visited had a built-in “skilled nursing care” level of care. Something I was looking for before I visited, so when DW continued to decline she could remain in place. For me, I called first, visited websites to see what LOCs these sites offered as my long term goal was to have DW age in place. Good luck.

justbreathe2

Thank you all for the helpful information. As each week goes by I see small changes in my DH. I need to get something in place. The 2 places I talk to are 3-4 months wait. I don’t think he will be ready that soon. I don’t know how much more decline in a year or less, but I do feel it will be difficult for me to handle him. He is very uncooperative at times now when I try to help. I am just not ready yet to go with him. There is a independent/assisted living place that is very nice. They do not have memory care unit, so it will be out of the question for my DH. There is a 2-3 year wait and I am thinking about this place for myself.

I am visiting another place tomorrow. They do have a daycare and that may be a way to introduce him.

SDianeL

I know what a difficult decision it is. I had planned on keeping my DH as long as I was physically able. I would have had VA caregiver support. In November 2023 I was diagnosed with rare aggressive breast cancer and had no choice but to place him in MC so I could get treatment. It broke my heart. He was Stage 5-6 at that time. He received excellent care there and I soon realized that I could not have cared for him much longer anyway. Please continue with your research for Plan B. My DH progressed rapidly the last year and passed in August.

midge333

@justbreathe2 :

The only advice I can give you is that you are better off placing him a month too early as opposed to a month too late. Get on a waiting list at facilities you would be comfortable with.

BPS

I had started checking a few places not being ready to make the move but just wanted to know more, then my wife had a stroke and a second one while in the hospital. That would have made it nearly impossible for me to care for her at home so having the information and making the contacts made it a lot easier than it would have been starting from with nothing.

BPS