Still at home

Hello. I’m reaching out because I’m wondering if you can make a recommendation for me. I need to speak to someone that can help me in managing the situation with my mother’s Alzheimer’s. I mean managing it from a psychological Perspective to benefit her. And me. And my husband.  As an example…

My mother simply refuses to accept that her home is where she’s lived for 24 years. Adding to her confusion is that for three years (during Covid) she lived with us. I made that happen because at the beginning of Covid I thought of it as a monster that was knocking on old people’s door and killing them. So we brought her to live with us. And that’s around the time that I discovered that she was starting to have memory issues. She went back to her own apartment in summer of 2023.

Back to the problem with where she lives. Every single day we have the same conversation/argument. She wants me to help her leave where she lives (which is about 15 minute drive away from me). She wants to live anywhere else but there. She says she feels too lonely. That she used to receive more visitors. She tells me every day that I could just drop her off anywhere and she’ll find a place to live. She’s 87 years old.

When I remind her that she’s lived there for 24 years, that it’s a great home, extoll all its virtues… At first she gets very upset and starts to question whether she’s trapped where she lives. She says I’m lying. She has a very nice apartment, and I have arranged 24/7 care for her with very good people. When I’ve lied and agree with her and say “OK I’ll help you find another place to live,” then she remembers that part and she’ll hound me about it for days and days and days. And gets very angry when there’s no progress. It really does not make any sense on several levels to relocate her.

I know that what she really wants is to come back and live with us. But quite frankly our marriage barely survived the pressure of having her with us for three years.

It doesn’t help that all her contemporaries have passed away. Her friends, her family. The  two contemporaries that remain live really far away so she doesn’t get to see them. It’s not that she’s completely isolated. She does live in a good neighborhood with shops and restaurants and her caregivers are always willing/encouraging her to go out for a walk, go out to lunch... But many times all she wants is for me to come and sit with her. And sometimes after I have visited her for a good long while or even during a long phone conversation she questions/confirms my identity.

I guess what I need to know is how do I deal with her overwhelming desire to leave her current living situation when it really makes no sense to do that. I just don’t feel she’s ready for a group situation with strangers. And of course there is the added challenge that she doesn’t remember that we keep having the same conversation. Even if sometimes she does after a while agree that it’s reasonable to stay in her apartment, the next day we start over.

Is there such a thing as a “family dealing with Alzheimer’s“ therapist?

Thank you for any recommendation you might provide.