When you do go to visit... DO NOT ANNOUNCE IT... SURPRISE !!! :)
I did that when mom was in hospital. went in morning before work. found my beautiful mom past out standing on floor naked with her torso draped over the mattress... :( To make matters stranger, her room was the closest to the nurses station. I blew up. Then I see a little worm scattering away.....yup, I should have raised h***. I kept it cook and demanded my mother get properly cleaned up and put back into bed. And the man at the station, his excuse was: I just walked onto the floor, I just clocked in.,,,, I just.... NO YOU - YOU JUST GET My MOM CLEAN AND IN BED. NOW. I don't care when you came n board, NOW.
sorry about that. things pop up, and bloom in the brain, then off onto a blog of discussions. thank you for "listening"
a friend finally moved his mom into a facility. He tried the In Home Care. He was called several times only to listen to fighting and arguing on the phone. When he got to mom's house, she and caretaker are acting like nothing happened. 45 minute drive there and vs... He wasn't happy. He found her a place 25 miles away, but the have all sorts of activities, and she is bouncing back. It is more difficult now with COVID, but he calls her every day, all the good things kid needs to do for mom. I was going to suggest to find her a place close to him, but he says she is doing great right there, and she is 94 years old...Who wants to be moved at that age? she seems happy too, so it sounds like a win/win to me. BAck to your mom. She needs to get acclimated to her new surroundings. This may mean, you do not pop in so much for the next 3 weeks. You can call the front desk, care takers etc. Let her settle. Do have her checked for UTI's. Do ask her doctor if she can have palliative care at the facility. That would be nice, right? Doctor comes to her instead of her leaving the facility and going to the doctor. Do bring snacks and treats to the staff and/or the residents. Make them happy
Are you choosing to move her? Why? A move will cause a sudden decline that she may return to the baseline of where she is now or she will not. There is no perfect facility. There will be staff you and she do not like. There will be services they provide that you don't like. Why don't they do it a certain way? Mom will still complain she doesn't like it there and the food is awful and neighbor is mean to her or assaults her. Her world is a wide variety of delusions and efforts to control her situation by manipulating family.
Why are you moving her? Are there staff issues? Facility procedural problems you don't like? Are your expectations of care to high? Does your mom say she doesn't like it there? Whatever the problems, I would try to work it out with the facility director. How do you know the new facility will be any better? Often it results in a series of continuous moves because of the unreasonable expectations of the caregiver.
Moving someone from one MC facility to another is a last recourse. Patient abuse, certainly, requires moving (and, of course, reporting the facility to Adult Protection Services). I once sat in a seminar where one attendee said she moved her mother 5 times to different facilities. So if you decide to move her, make sure it's for the right reasons.
This is always a difficult decision. Just as making the decision in the first place to choose a Memory Care facility. There is always a chance the move will accelerate a decline. Get the new room as ready as possible. If you can move all the furniture so you can set up the room to be the same as much as possible. But even doing that there will be confusion. The old room was on the left, if the new one is on the right that will lead to confusion. If the old room was 4 rooms past the nurses station and this one is fewer or more that will be confusing. If the move can not be avoided the staff is aware of the difficulty in a move and they will be helpful. It will take time. Just do not be surprised if you notice a decline, and there might not be a “bounce back” from it.
I did that when mom was in hospital. went in morning before work. found my beautiful mom past out standing on floor naked with her torso draped over the mattress... :(
To make matters stranger, her room was the closest to the nurses station. I blew up. Then I see a little worm scattering away.....yup, I should have raised h***. I kept it cook and demanded my mother get properly cleaned up and put back into bed. And the man at the station, his excuse was: I just walked onto the floor, I just clocked in.,,,, I just.... NO YOU - YOU JUST GET My MOM CLEAN AND IN BED. NOW. I don't care when you came n board, NOW.
sorry about that. things pop up, and bloom in the brain, then off onto a blog of discussions. thank you for "listening"
BAck to your mom. She needs to get acclimated to her new surroundings. This may mean, you do not pop in so much for the next 3 weeks. You can call the front desk, care takers etc. Let her settle. Do have her checked for UTI's. Do ask her doctor if she can have palliative care at the facility. That would be nice, right? Doctor comes to her instead of her leaving the facility and going to the doctor.
Do bring snacks and treats to the staff and/or the residents. Make them happy
Moving someone from one MC facility to another is a last recourse. Patient abuse, certainly, requires moving (and, of course, reporting the facility to Adult Protection Services). I once sat in a seminar where one attendee said she moved her mother 5 times to different facilities. So if you decide to move her, make sure it's for the right reasons.
There is always a chance the move will accelerate a decline.
Get the new room as ready as possible. If you can move all the furniture so you can set up the room to be the same as much as possible. But even doing that there will be confusion. The old room was on the left, if the new one is on the right that will lead to confusion. If the old room was 4 rooms past the nurses station and this one is fewer or more that will be confusing.
If the move can not be avoided the staff is aware of the difficulty in a move and they will be helpful. It will take time. Just do not be surprised if you notice a decline, and there might not be a “bounce back” from it.