Our parents both have dementia & anxiety

Marci Brockmann

Dad is 85 and has Alzheimer’s and dementia. Mom is 80 and has dementia and aphasia. They are living in their apartment with aides providing care 11am-8pm 7 days a week.

Their conditions are advancing and soon we will have to rethink their care. Dad is getting agitated and verbally abusive to mom, which of course gets her agitated and extremely anxious and upset. The aids are wonderful and do everything right to get the situation to de-escalate. But we’re starting to get concerned that maybe dad needs to be put into an assisted living memory care facility to protect mom from him. But because of her aphasia, she can’t really be left alone in the apartment at night cause she will not be able to ask for help if there’s a problem. She will likely have very ambivalent feelings about dad moving out of the apartment into a facility. She does love him, but he does really piss her off, annoy her, and cause lots of stress.

Dad gets very upset when he forgets about mom‘s aphasia and thinks that he’s getting the silent treatment from her because she’s mad at him. It makes him cry and get very depressed and he takes to his bed and somebody has to talk him down. So separating them is going to cause him a huge amount of distress and depression and could hasten in the end of his life.

We could move them both to a facility and maybe get them separate bedrooms so they have the opportunity to have some space from each other as well as be together if they want. And then they would have 24/7 assistance and other residents and caregivers and activities to distract them and keep them busy and occupied.

We’ve done everything that we can to keep them in their own apartment for as long as possible, but I have long felt that having activities and other people around for entertainment and distraction would be better for both of them.

But on the other hand, we are also concerned that something untoward, or violent or abusive could happen to mom in a facility and she wouldn’t have the ability to verbally defend herself, call for help, or report it. At least not reliably.

We need advice.

We need some advice.

hiya

you have come to the right place to get advice. Depending on what stage they are in, maybe a facility that has both assisted living and memory care will be a good thing. This way, if assisted living can’t give enough support, your mum can still see your dad. You can get them evaluated from a facility to see their thoughts on which system they see gives the support needed. Good luck.

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https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/238740#Comment_238740

That's a great thought. That way they can have time together and apart, while getting the care they both need, Thank you,