My LO in memory care keeps having things going missing. He’s on his 2nd pair of eyeglasses & I was told they’re missing. Who is responsible?

If you let them do their wash...clothes will disappear and you'll never see them again... Mom had a nice fleece she wore because she was always cold... rosary beads in the pocket.... some nice sweaters and skirts... all disappeared... they said they would "look" for them.... never found and never reimbursed.... Never leave jewelry with your loved ones... thats the first thing they will steal...

At the assisted living we own, we encourage families to provide a small lock box for hearing aids, glasses, Nurses check every night at bedtime to make sure items are put up. We attach the boxes to the nightstand so the boxes don’t take a walk. We’ve had one staff member who stole from residents (terminated). Prior to lock boxes, most items were found in other resident rooms.

Where my mother was, the patients would come into her room and steal. And they wouldn't keep the doors locked. So, it was an ongoing problem.

I see mom twice a week and can keep close track of where things go. When things are missing, I can usually find them hidden away in kleenex, socks, drawers etc. etc. I am not quick to accuse the staff until I thoroughly go through moms room. I tell mom I want to refold her clothes and clean out her purse for her and reorganize her little trolley cart. Low and behold... the tv remote is there. On thing we did when she lost her hearing aids was purchased one of these.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000336622674.html?src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=494-037-6276&isdl=y&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&aff_platform=google&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&&albagn=888888&albcp=9309943343&albag=90987094781&trgt=296730740870&crea=en4000336622674&netw=u&device=c&albpg=296730740870&albpd=en4000336622674&gclid=CjwKCAjwrKr8BRB_EiwA7eFapmgiXQvDAA792wna0HwkK_1Xu8uWprCOV1bOKtm3Jznm1d3djv-AOhoCVwkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Dear psyskind1:

OMG.... I don’t know where to begin. My young adult daughter who is thank God living back home with me after I was financially forced to placed her in a skilled nursing facility.
98% of everything my child owned went missing or was destroyed beyond repair. This includes the wall mounted plasma tv I had installed in her room. She acquired a severe DAI & short term memory loss and was keep so over medicated and do much more issues that happened and the worst nightmare you could imagine while at these facilities. It’s sickening another human being does this to other human beings, especially defenseless ones who can’t protect themselves.
I wear reading glasses so I can see up close, and without them, I can be obsoletely sure what I’m reading or seeing and why they stay on my eyes or head literally almost 24/7.
I wouldn’t worry about these reading glasses going missing, they start with small items and build up to larger items. It has to be the staff as they are responsible for the care your dad’s receiving and who enters his room. That’s their friggin job. I could make a list for you and the money it took to replace everything that I absolutely couldn’t afford to replace but I did. And I did without. But what you need to worry about is what’s actually happening to your dad.
I wish I had more political pull, as I would somehow find the monies to have a camera installed in every person(s) room while in the care of others. I tried to install a camera in my daughters room and you would have thought I committed murder. I didn’t try to hide it, why should I? If the staff was doing their job, there shouldn’t be any issues. The facilities claim its for the residents dignity, but I would rather have my daughters dignity exposed, than knowing everything that happened to her, and have proof, but a lawyer won’t touch it, because they are afraid of loosing their license to practice law should they proceed with all the things that weren’t just happening to my child, but I can honestly say happening to over 85-90% of the other residents as well. Ask around to other loved ones we visiting your dad you come to see and visit with their loved one in this facility. You will find out immediately their loved one has been missing things, as well. The facility will or won’t call you to inform you of some of the issues, but it’s nothing but a smoke screen for them so you are invested in trying to find out what’s going on and not putting their staff in the list of possibilities that it’s them doing all of this and also taking your attention off of things actually happening directly to your dad that I can assure you isn’t pleasant, and done intentionally for God knows why these issues continue to happen but they do every day and no one not even ombudsman will help you. They pretend to, but don’t be fooled, they aren’t your loved ones advocate at all.

Imho, speak to the head of this facility. It is true that items do "walk" to patients' rooms other than the owner(s) of the items.

I video chat with my mom, and sometimes I know she is wearing clothes that don't belong to her. One day she wasnt wearing her glasses, and I had to call them to find them.

The one thing that upsets me is that her wedding rings have gone missing. Mom gestures with her hand a lot and I noticed right away. I call them to check and verify, I knew that she had just been helped shower and changed clothes. Her rings have been a little looser, and could have been lost when changing. They responded right away and asked for pictures so they could look, but they haven't shown up any where. Of course, they still haven't approved essential caregiver, so I can't look myself. The only blessing is that she hasn't seemed to notice. That really surprises me, as she didnt want to give them to me while she was in the hospital earlier this year, and they took her for tests and I promised to hold them for her. As soon as she got back in the room, she wanted those rings back!

This is a common happening in all facilities. Resident's visit each other's rooms and "shop" or borrow whatever you want to call it. Usually, we tried to convince resident to let the night nurse lock small items like hearing aids up on the med cart and sometimes that worked. Most residents were loath to give up those glasses though after 50 years of putting them on the night stand. I never quite figured out how but glasses and hearing aids often made their way to the laundry where they were promptly done in. Of course, they would be discovered if you were doing laundry at home but the laundry staff in a facility is doing several hundred sheets per day. They don't have the time or space to "shake the sheets" and the result is into the washer the glasses, earrings, hearing aids go. It's unfortunate but unless you can convince your LO to give it to the night nurse and have the facility lock it up overnight (get it in writting) there is not much you can do. They are not going to keep paying to replace the hearing aid

Talk to facility about missing items. They should be checking for these items when they go in and out of his room. I would think hearing aids stay in until he goes to bed at night, so that's something they could put away for him each night and give back the next morning. If he wears glasses all day, then those might be getting lost when taken off at night. Possibly getting thrown away - put a sign on the trash can not to dump until glasses and hearing aids are located.

You could help get them back to correct place by putting some kind of name tag on glasses. Not so sure about labeling hearing aids depending on the size. Might also get one of those things that attaches to glasses so if he takes them off they are still hanging on his neck.

This happened to my mother in memory care. They found numerous pairs of glasses in one of the patients room. It was also not uncommon for someone to take their glasses off set them down somewhere. Then another person would come along, see the glasses and put them on, not realizing they weren't theirs.

Faciliity should have policy and procedure to safeguard their clients' belongings. Please ask to see their policy and what they will do to replace items that "got lost" in their facility.

I would also discuss with his caregiver supervisor or front office, at least. When my husband was in assisted living, he would wander into one of the "living room" areas of 4, and lay down and take a nap on a sofa. He also wandered into another room and I found him taking a nap on someone's bed. Another time, I would enter and find something in his room that wasn't his. Found out one of the men walked around the whole of the very long "room" (with the 4 living rooms), and would go in and out of unlocked rooms. Rooms unlocked so people would know where they "lived" and enter on their own. One day while I was there I found a baby doll on his recliner; by this time my DH was in bed due to a fall. I took the doll out and put it in a nearby living room. A few minutes later the same man came in and took a pair of my husband's socks that he had on his recliner. I told one of the caregivers and she said Mr. so and so did that a lot and she got the socks and returned them to me. All items had my husband's initials on them, so they would know where to return. That was company policy.
Try getting the glasses necklace (name escapes me) to put glasses around his neck--one for each pair if necessary. I know it's frustrating, but your LO may not be the one losing his glasses, but then, again, he may just be. Hard to deal with, I know.

INatalie a Camera.

my Husband looses his glasses all the time. Peep keeper works well. I also keep his “good” glasses in one place for when he would need to use “good” glasses.
i went out to CVS and bought 10 pair of cheep readers and placed them all over. One I’m his pocket. One in his wheelchair one in his walker one next to the lamp one next to the bed one next to the toilet etc. mostly it was getting him into a habit of keeping them on his shirt that worked the best. Needless to say we have tons of glasses and we never misplace them.
i would put cameras in his room. That way you can see just what is going on.

OMG I just read lealoni's post about someone eating another persons hearing aid!

How horrible and hilarious!

Yeah, this is one of those things that is extremely upsetting and frustrating when your family member is in a facility of any kind.  The residents are not chained to their bed, they are free to roam and when they do, things get laid down, things get picked up and things get lost.  Our aunt was in memory care and in her room we found false teeth, glasses, clothing, etc, that were not hers.  The doors to their rooms are not locked so anyone can come in and out.  Many are not mobile, but many are and it just simply can't be controlled.  It's awful.  You can tell the facility that something is missing, but the odds of them finding it are pretty slim. 

My mother actually went into another residents apartment and took a nap in their bed.  Imagine their surprise when they found her!

I am sorry that you are dealing with this and I don't mean to make light of it.

Gotta love dementia. Mom called that she needed another pair of scissors so she could cut the yarn for her knitting. She had hidden her scissors and forgotten where she put them. The same with her Bible and multiple other things. It's just part of the disease.

My dad lost so many things at home and in AL. He would hide things inside a sock and place the sock in a drawer or under his bed. This was part of his dementia.

Stuff just flat goes MIA no matter how attentive the staff or how carefully you label stuff. Doesn’t matter whether is an expensive only private pay LTC or one that takes Medicaid. There lots of “happy hands” residents due to dementia plus other residents often gift to another their personal possessions. Its also likely your mom has placed her things and walked away from them.

If your happy with care there, try to focus on that & not things MIA.

if she’s on Medicaid, she gets $ each month for a Personal Needs Allowance that you as her dpoa should use to replace items. If the MC is getting her SS$ directly each mo, they have set up a in-facility trust account that you go to the business office to withdraw $ from her PNA to buy her things. If she’s private pay, perhaps think of this as it’s just $ that goes towards a spend down should she in her future need to apply for LTC Medicaid.

I get your frustration, my mom was forever MIA on 1 shoe, but she ended up with a collection of glitzy hair barrettes and she was most def not the barrette type. Look to buy the replacements inexpensively in multiplies and just store them in ziplocks till the next time needed. I used bright neon nail polish on everything of hers hard surface that I could or colored laundry markered anything fabric with her initials calligraphied. It will help you spot her stuff easier.

By virtue of the fact that these residents all have dementia, Alzheimers and memory/cognitive issues in general, things always go missing. Chaos reigns supreme from time to time as well, while residents wander into one another's rooms and 'borrow' whatever they set their eyes on. It's unavoidable. My mother keeps her door locked 24/7 in Memory Care, so nobody's wandered into her room and whatever goes 'missing' is due to her own misplacement of it. She will tell me 100x that thus-and-such has been 'stolen' but that has never been the case even ONCE the entire times she's been living there.

When I was working in a Memory Care ALF before the plague hit, missing glasses & hearing aids were always an issue. Walter would lose his own glasses and his son constantly blamed us. Bottom line was, Walter's son had to keep getting him new glasses (readers) if the CGs couldn't locate his old ones. Normally they could, but not always. The bed is a great place to have the CG look first and foremost for missing items.

We once had a situation where a resident was eating at the dinner table, took out one of her hearing aids for some reason; another resident grabbed it out of her hand and ATE it. Literally. Chewed it right up and swallowed it. Sigh. The resident's POA had to get her another set b/c the Memory Care is not responsible for these types of mishaps or 'missing items'. Unfortunately.

Sorry you are going thru this; I know how frustrating and expensive it can be!!

I would suggest they check the other residents. I went to see my Mom (yrs back) and there just was something not right. Finally realized she had the wrong glasses on. She was wearing rectangled frames she had oval. My GF was a hairdresser at the AL and she had done my Moms hair that morning. Found out she had two clients at the same time, Mom and another lady. Yep, the other lady had Moms glasses and Mom hers. Both had Dementia and I don't think they realized the difference in the prescriptions.

I took a picture of everything I took to Moms AL and NH. One was her glasses. Hers had some filigree on them. I took a picture from the front and sides.

Those glasses are there somewhere. He may have wandered into some one elses room. If he shares a room the aide could have gotten glasses mixed up or roommate could have them. Find a way that they can be recognized. Adhesive tape wrapped around the side piece with his initials on it?

Oh boy. Such an impossible situation.

Unfortunately it is your loved one who is almost certainly held responsible, even though he or she is in memory care. I know it makes no sense. As a nurse it was so common to see missing dentures, glasses, hearing aids. They got left on trays, flushed down toilets, lost who knows where. It is so difficult, and such a problem, but one with no answer. Do call them and ask, but I think that this is the case. You might consider putting out a "reward if you find.....blah blah " note on the door. But of course THAT could lead to them missing often, I guess.