Decline when placed in Memory Care

My DH has been in MC since September. I have also seen a decline but not as severe as you have described. You are doing what you think is best and navigating uncertain situations. He couldn't live alone so some solution had to be found. I trust that you will do what is best and make the necessary decisions. Is he a candidate for any therapy to assist even with a safety evaluation?

Dear @kymbermac,

Check with the MC staff and see if you can get a hospice evaluation for your LO. This is usually free and they can do an assessment to see if he qualifies for their services. If so, they will be ‘extra eyes’ on your LO and also can provide some medical supplies. The nurses are usually terrific with answering questions too.

I hope you will give yourself some grace - you are a good caregiver and are doing your best.

Prayers and hugs for you.

How awful! I am sorry to hear your LO has declined so rapidly. I agree that talking to the facility directors about your concerns is important (does he have a UTI?), and it is likely that the first fall set the stage for the others.

But disease progression can be abrupt—like stair steps. It is highly unlikely that the move caused the decline, and you are not at fault for moving him.

My mother has been in MC for almost 5 months. She did have an initial decline in the first few weeks (very unhappy, crying when I visited, sundowning, more incontinence accidents). Additional meds helped (depakote added to her usual lexapro). At our 3 month care conference, the nurse said she no longer needs the depakote and is back to just lexapro. They have her on a toileting schedule every 2 hours while awake, so the incontinence has improved.

Throughout the past 5 months, I have noticed incremental improvements in mom's demeanor and functioning. Her quality of life has definitely improved. She takes part in most of the activities. She says her favorite activity is playing the bongo drums, something I never would've imagined, but I think is pretty cool. She has decorated her room with her various art projects (another surprise - prior to dementia she would've been too self-conscious to try), and loves showing them to me. She has made friends with some of the other residents, and it is wonderful seeing her interact with them. She was always a very social person, but as her dementia progressed, fewer of her friends engaged with her. Also, at nearly 97, most of her friends have died or are otherwise too incapacitated to do any socializing.

Prior to moving to MC, she had 3 shifts of private caregivers. Some of the caregivers were wonderful and engaged with mom. Others mostly just sat in the house on their phones while mom meandered around looking out the windows and overwatering her plants, and occasionally watering her hearing aids as well. (I had cameras in her house so I could periodically check in.)

Now, if I were to ask if she wanted to go home (I don't), I'm sure she would say "yes". In her mind, she is unaware that she needs help with all of her ADLs. Her walking has improved due to extra PT, which was the story we told her when moving to MC, but also due to the extra oversight of more staff with eyes on her, the routine of going to various activities, and keeping busy. All in all, the move to MC has been a win. If we could've afforded to keep her at home with 24/7 caregivers, she (and we) would've missed out on the benefit of more social engagement and oversight.

With every big change there can be an initial decline that is often recovered from.

But many times, moving a LO to MC also makes obvious things that were not apparent when they are living home alone like: not really eating, not drinking, not washing, not taking meds, being sometimes incontinent and having accidents, being a fall risk, falling and no on knew because the LO was able to get up and didn't say anything.

Until my LO fell and couldn't get up and went to the hospital we had no idea about the past falls (results showed) up on the X-ray. Once they got out of rehab and into care we found out that they weren't taking their meds, eating, washing and were having incidence of incontinence.

I was shopping for them but they weren't eating were leaving food out and were severely dehydrated. My LO swore and was positive they were eating, cooking, washing and doing laundry but it turned out they had lost 15% of their body weight over the last couple of years. Once they got into MC, yes, they started wearing pull ups, but they also gained weight, made friends, were clean and got their meds.