Mom constantly losing hearing aid and glasses in memory care, at what point do you stop replacing them?

I've been doing a fair amount of reading on this subject, there are some good threads here on AgingCare. I personally feel that impaired hearing and vision exacerbate dementia, visual and aural cues help to keep them oriented. I also understand that these items are not cheap and you can't continue to keep replacing them.
Do you have any idea how or when they go missing? HAs are small enough to get mixed in the laundry or garbage if she puts them in a pocket or wraps them in a tissue, but the glasses should be more difficult to lose. Small children who have HAs can have them tethered to a lanyard, it is beyond me why hearing specialists don't advise that for those with dementia. I have also read that some nursing homes will keep such items on the med cart overnight and hand them out in the morning, which would be helpful if they get lost in her room after she removes them. As for the glasses, mark them clearly with her name, perhaps pick a unique, fun frame so they are easily recognized and she is less apt to give them away, and try a lanyard for them as well.

We had this problem with my husband and his eyeglasses.The trick is to know or observe if the person misses the hearing aids or the glasses. Once they don't look for them and don't know they are missing, we can stop providing them. Give them to the staff in case the person asks for them or seems to be looking for them or questioning something for which they need the aids to understand something they want to know.
Otherwise, it is the person's way to decrease the stimulation they receive that they no longer comprehend anyway.We need to understand that it is not about us, not about what someone else may say about our not providing glasses or hearing aids. it is about the memory care resident,who often just wants to be left alone.

I have the same issues that you do with my mom in the Dementia unit of her facility. She has lost bridgework, glasses, clothing, and at one point a chair of her's was removed for cleaning and never returned. My questions and requests for the return of her things seems to fall on deaf ears. She also leaves things and takes things from other people's rooms. And, she throws things away. Her clothing is all labeled with black permanent marker. I have decided that as long as she's dressed, whether they're her clothes or not, I don't fuss. She doesn't care. I buy clothing from thrift stores and don't spend a lot. She has macular degeneration and can't see well even with glasses, so I haven't replaced the ones she lost or threw away a year ago. It's a no-win situation, and as long as my mother is well-taken care of and supervised, which she is, I don't stress about it.

As we all know, hearing aids and glasses are very expensive. Depending on your income will depend on how often you can replace these items, but really you should never have to replace them out of your own pocket, this isn't even and expense you should be worrying about.

If she's in memory care, how do you know these items aren't really being stolen by another resident? You don't. I know you can't be there all the time, so you can't know every little thing that goes on when you're not there. Anytime someone's in memory care, you'll be faced with other residents with memory issues, and one of those problems your face is other residents wandering in and out of other peoples rooms and even picking up stuff they mistake as their's. I'm surprised the memory care staff aren't putting up some kind of barricade across the doors of residence having stuff coming up missing. I have noticed this in facilities, and this is supposed to actually help stop wandering residents from entering other peoples rooms. If a specific resident has a habit of entering a specific room, staff are supposed to put up a special barricade to stop the behavior. It sounds to me like something needs done where the memory care staff are involved. If this is a fault of an oversight of the memory care staff, they are responsible for the lost items since they keep people in their care. Next time you must replace lost glasses or hearing aids, I would just bill the memory care facility for it. Meanwhile, you should contact the "head department of nursing" for that nursing home and explain what's going on. Explain that next time you must replace lost glasses or hearing aids, the facility will be billed for it and you won't be paying for it. This will get the head department of nursing moving toward getting to the bottom of why the glasses and hearing aids keep coming up missing.

If the facility won't take responsibility to resolve the problem, I personally would contact APS and keep reporting the problem until they act. I would also contact the patient's doctor and alert that doctor as well as the providers for the glasses and hearing aids. One other resource that would be a very good idea to contact if all else fails is an elder care attorney who can help guide you through this type of issue

We had the same problem. I eventually gave up on the hearing aids, because Dad just refused to wear them. But the glasses, he needed. He lost them almost daily. It turned out to be one of the other residents who would wander into Dad's room and take his stuff. And the glasses would be right out in the open on his bedside table while he slept. She'd wander away with it and leave it everywhere. (Dad was not mobile enough to be the one moving this stuff.) Unfortunately all the residents had dementia, and the other residents would just pick up the glasses and put them on. They were to confused to know they weren't seeing right with them, and no one could say, just by looking at them, that those weren't the right glasses. (All the men's glasses look the same) Found those glasses in the hall, in dining room on the sofa in lounge. And in the nurses station where they had a box of at least 20 pair of lost and never claimed glasses. What was annoying was seeing another resident wearing a pair that Iwas fairly sure were Dad's, but nothing could be done to get them back. (I even offered to take them to the optician to have them determine if the perscription matched. ) Replaced those glasses twice in eight months time. $$$! The second time, I took nail polish and painted the end of one stem bright green and the other bright pink. That way whenever I saw them on another resident I could easily identify them and get them back. (puting tape or label on the stem didn't work, would just come off. )

Putthatknifeawayis so right.

Less than a year ago, we bought my mom new glasses for $600.00. the next day, when I asked where they were, she told me that she doesn't wear glasses.

That's it. No more glasses. And no more newspaper subscription, which is very expensive. The subscription ran out and I thought I would wait to see if she mentions it. No mention so far.

So, we just keep playing cards. It is nice. short, sweet visits.

I think the best idea is painting the frames with nail varnish or take them to a jeweler and have them engraved with the owners name. If they are only used for reading buy a few drug store pairs and call it good. In NYS it is illegal to sell anything stronger than 2.5 and I now need 4.0 but they are easy enough to buy for a few $s on the Internet. As far as the hearing aids are concerned. there are now some that can be permanently placed in the ear and have to be changed every three months by an Audiologist. Have no idea of cost.

My Dad's audiologist feels strongly he needs his hearing aids and filled out a form for insurance. We already had the facility keep them in the med cart but that didn't keep him from losing them during the day. Fairly certain one probably ended up in laundry and they just didn't tell me. He's down to one, which is still being held in the med cart, but I am not replacing them. It's not to be mean. I no longer ask them to even try to put the one hearing aid he has left in. His glasses were lost right away when he moved in. We were able to take him for his eye checkup the first year, but now he won't respond to cues or cooperate with me so I cannot take him out alone. The activity director has observed no changes in his participation and comprehension without them. However, he's pretty late stage. I hate it, but just couldn't keep buying hearing aids for someone who doesn't know what's going on or where he is. I feel terrible, but this is life and reality unless money is no object.

CCRhea: It is quite common in these places for items to go missing. Since your loved one has Alzheimer's, she is not expected to nor can she keep track of her hearing aide, eyeglasses or clothing. No doubt the staff is actually UNDERSTAFFED so their ability to keep track of patients' possessions is severely impaired. So unfortunately as you can't install a video camera in the room that she is in (and it wouldn't be monitored anyway), you are stuck with the alternative, which is "does she really miss the aide and eyeglasses?"

My Mother-in-law has dementia and we had a rough time with glasses,
We took her to get her eyes checked and got new glasses, and within one day
she had ran over them with her wheel chair. She would take them off and place them in her lap, and they would fall off. She would also sit on them and break them. We replaced them and got them fixed a few times, and then gave up and she wore her old ones. She wanted the hear aid really bad, but then did not want to mess with it. She kept pulling it out when she touched her hair, or combed it.