Need new strategy to get Dad into Nursing home

Does anyone have durable POA? If not, can you work on getting it or guardianship. Because you aren’t going to get him to cooperate. You will just have to get him moved by delivering him and helping him settle into a room ‘temporarily’ until the doctor says he’s strong enough to go home.

Do you really mean a nursing home or do you mean a memory care facility? Does he have actual medical care needs or just custodial care needs?

I would stop trying to convince him! You just can’t reason with a person with dementia. And even if you do finally get through to him as you have found out it doesn’t last long and you are right back where you started. As QBC has said you will need DPOA or guardianship. I would find the best place and figure out all the financial stuff without consulting him. If there is a waiting list get him on it. When the time comes for the move, take him to lunch and then to the facility. He will be furious/ sad but safe. Or as QBC suggested tell him it a temporary thing the doctor has recommended. Maybe make up some problem with his house that needs to be fixed(mold in the basement). You will have a better idea of what will work. We told (not ask) my mom 2 weeks in advance (not my idea) she was not happy, but figured she didn’t have much choice. She packed up everything (cookbooks, bought king size sheets, ..). We only brought a few of the boxes ( still brought a lot of things she didn’t need) the day of the move. We went through everything else later. She was not happy that we did not bring her back to her house so she could get the rest of her things (she didn’t need).

Many of us here understand the struggle. Naturally we wish that our family members could realize and agree with the need for 24/7 supervision in a facility ... but the dementia does not allow them to reason, and their fears or just the belief that they don't really need it makes them resist the care they DO need..

Custodial care will provide help with bathing, dressing, getting to the dining room for meals, medication management, overall safety. Memory care can do all of that, plus a good memory care will have staff with training on how to work effectively with residents who have dementia.

A nursing home provides custodial care but is not specifically designed for dementia. If a person has medical needs such as tube feedings, wound care, intensive physical therapy after an injury, nursing home placement may be needed.

In my experience, memory care is much better suited to care for folks with dementia, IF their medical care is not too complex. Programs vary by location. Sometimes you can get physical therapy through a home health provider in memory care, for example. Some residents at my mom's MC are very disabled physically but have private duty or hospice care, which allows them to remain at MC instead of transferring to a nursing home. And some nursing homes have a special unit for dementia, which can provide services similar to memory care. You really just have to visit, observe and ask questions at any facility you are considering.

I hope that you find the right place for your dad. Be prepared for him to be unhappy for a while. You are doing your best to keep him safe and provide the support that he needs. Some folks are less stressed once they adjust to the move, because so many of the daily activities that were struggles for them are now taken care of - things like shopping, meal prep, laundry, paying bills. It will still be on the family to coordinate and monitor care, but you will know he has eyes on him for safety even when you cannot be there.

@Mav2126

You are making a rookie mistake of trying to get buy-in on moving into a SNF.

The cognitive changes that come with dementia— memory loss, poor executive function, empathy and anosognosia (inability to recognize their own impairments)— mean you aren't ever going to get consistent agreement that this is for the best much less his blessing. You have to do what is safe for both of you and accept that he will not be happy about it for at least some time. Many older people have an image of facilities from a time when they were pretty awful places which also plays into this.

My dad was super anti-facility. He was so appalled by the facility where his mom was, that he specifically took steps to avoid naming a POA or obtaining LTC insurance which just made things harder and a lot more expensive.

What we did was spring the move to his MCF as a "doctor's appointment". His short-term memory was pretty bad at that point, so we created a fiblet that the doctor had prescribed a rehab stay to get him stronger so he could be safe at home. To that end, I did not decorate his room like a mini-version of his house but more like a nice but impersonal hotel room. We added a few pictures after he'd settled in. This ruse also allowed us to defer to the doctor about when he would come home, validate his frustration and share that we wanted him home, too.

HB