How long……

hiya

My memory care np told me today that she has seen stage 6 last for 10 years!!! Scary but even more scary as moving to mc and concerned about costs!! Have long had your LO stayed in this stage?

Bluebird

Everyone is different. My mom was in memory care for 7 years. She ran out of money after 5 years. After she ran out of money she went on Medicaid. We made sure before we placed her that the memory care would accept Medicaid after she ran out of money. The home we placed her in required that she had enough money to pay for 3 years of care before they would accept Medicaid.

Timmyd

It is hard to make such big decisions with so much uncertainty. I try to not be influenced by one individual story or anecdote. There are always outliers. There is plenty of information available about how long patients stay in each stage "on average". There have been enough people to travel this path that the statistics are meaningful. I try to look at things on average and keep a reasonable buffer for margin of error. But yes, there is some scary information out there about how long some patients hang around in the end stages.

One thing I look at on this site, is for the people who are currently posting, when did they join? That gives me some insight into how long this could last.

hiya

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/243278#Comment_243278

what stage was your DM when she moved into MC?

Quilting brings calm

My mom had dementia for at least 5 years. She was moving into stage 5 when her health started to decline and she went on oxygen. A few months after that, she went on hospice solely for extra help with her ADLs. No expectation of death. She passed 5 weeks later as she quit eating.
There’s simply no way for you to know how long your loved one will live or what other health problems will occur. I operated under this theory: I have to do what is best for them now. My parents needed assisted living. So that’s what they got. During Covid, they needed to move from a one bedroom apartment in the AL to a two-bedroom because the restrictions were a lot. They needed room to decompress from each other. So that is one they got, even though it was more expensive.

There was enough in her checking account upon her death that she could have lived at the private-pay AL for one more year.

Bluebird

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/243283#Comment_243283

She was stage 6.