Hi Engineer685, I can relate and understand your stress over this. My mother is 85 to be 86, and I am lucky she is in a very caring Catholic home that stresses a "home" environment and feeling, she has Alzheimers too.
I am sure the facility knows that this behavior is most common for alzheimer patients, I'd say even more common than not for those with dementias. It is not intentional, they think everything is their things, everything throughout the home belongs to my mother apparently. I had brought up things for her to make her feel more at home in her environment but stopped this because mom stashes things in her shirt, pants, jacket, pockets, wherever, it was like a police shakedown getting her dressed or undressed. She'd put picture frames, just about anything in pillow cases and her person and carry it around, so her things were all over the place and other people's things were too. The latest thing was eyeglasses, we joked that mom was a latent optician, she left her eyeglasses somewhere in her travels, and acquired four new pairs since she wanders all over the place, she is physically in excellent shape, can walk better than me, no lie, since i have ankle osteoarthritis, she literally can run and does, she was a runner when she was younger and believe me, she walks and runs like a hare.
In any event, I would talk to NH director and staff, this is nothing new to them and they are well able to deal with it. I went to see my mother yesterday and she had a HUGE pair of eyeglasses on, she looked like Sherman of Peabody and Sherman on the Rocky Bullwinkle show, she had a towel on top of her new cap that she acquired in her journeys. I just had to laugh, before it would have upset me to no end, now I realize that is what she does and what her fellow residents do and it is literally a "group home" now, everyone has something from someone else and it is all shared and not fretted about. I brought my mother's expensive ring home and anything else we did not want to be lost somewhere in the home. She also is a stasher, so there are thing stashed from all of the residents all over, that is why they label just about everything, so when Mary's rosary is found stashed in a cup in a cupboard it is returned or put out in a common area. Take home what is too valuable to lose, Label clothes and just about anything else and just relax because in the end it all comes out in the wash.
I am sure the facility knows that this behavior is most common for alzheimer patients, I'd say even more common than not for those with dementias. It is not intentional, they think everything is their things, everything throughout the home belongs to my mother apparently. I had brought up things for her to make her feel more at home in her environment but stopped this because mom stashes things in her shirt, pants, jacket, pockets, wherever, it was like a police shakedown getting her dressed or undressed. She'd put picture frames, just about anything in pillow cases and her person and carry it around, so her things were all over the place and other people's things were too. The latest thing was eyeglasses, we joked that mom was a latent optician, she left her eyeglasses somewhere in her travels, and acquired four new pairs since she wanders all over the place, she is physically in excellent shape, can walk better than me, no lie, since i have ankle osteoarthritis, she literally can run and does, she was a runner when she was younger and believe me, she walks and runs like a hare.
In any event, I would talk to NH director and staff, this is nothing new to them and they are well able to deal with it. I went to see my mother yesterday and she had a HUGE pair of eyeglasses on, she looked like Sherman of Peabody and Sherman on the Rocky Bullwinkle show, she had a towel on top of her new cap that she acquired in her journeys. I just had to laugh, before it would have upset me to no end, now I realize that is what she does and what her fellow residents do and it is literally a "group home" now, everyone has something from someone else and it is all shared and not fretted about. I brought my mother's expensive ring home and anything else we did not want to be lost somewhere in the home. She also is a stasher, so there are thing stashed from all of the residents all over, that is why they label just about everything, so when Mary's rosary is found stashed in a cup in a cupboard it is returned or put out in a common area. Take home what is too valuable to lose, Label clothes and just about anything else and just relax because in the end it all comes out in the wash.