For example if I put something on her bed she gets unhappy and starts saying this needs to move every few minutes until I move it. That has now become me. After I have been there for about 20 minutes she starts saying “You need to go” every few minutes until I go because she is agitated. My assurance that it is okay for me to be there doesn’t help.
Is this behavior normal? Anyone else had to deal with this?
We’re currently in the works on getting her medicated which will help relieve her anxieties, and (we hope) will reduce the OCD behavior as well as her screaming at us at the drop of a hat.
She's also telling you that it's either hard, difficult, or challenging for her to visit with you after about 20 minutes. That may be the extent of her ability to interact, or that may be the only way she can now interact with you.
I would respect her attempt to control her environment, write down her preferences after you leave, and honor her requests. It may help her more than you realize.
Visits are pretty futile right now.
Mom is obsessed with making sure that she is right in her caregivers' faces, so that they will not let a meal go by without receiving hers. She has NEVER been forgotten. This happens even if I come in at the end of a meal. She forgets that she has been fed. No amount of reassurance that I JUST witnessed her eating will convince her.
She leaves her room where we are "visiting" to go check with the caregivers - over and over and over. Each time she leaves, she is more and more agitated to have to come back and sit with me.
She is almost happy to see me go, so that she can get back to shadowing her caregivers.
I end up going once a week, for about 10 minutes. She leaves the room at least three times during a visit.
I can't leave decorations, or cards or letters from friends and family with her. She scoops them off of her dresser or side-table. She thinks that they will spontaneously combust.
I just had major surgery, and won't be able to make a visit for a few more weeks...so my family has been dropping off her favorite cereal and snacks. I bet my Mom doesn't even notice that I haven't been there.
It's all so sad, but that's where we are right now. She's in a lovely facility, with terrific caregivers. I'm thankful.
This is normal behavior for your sister in Memory Care at this particular moment in time. It can change/morph into a new odd behavior at any given time; that's the nature of the dementias and we never know WHAT is coming next. OCD type behaviors are very common and unless she's very agitated frequently, medication should not be prescribed.
Right now, my mother with advanced dementia believes she's living in a 'hotel' and she's taken to a 'new hotel that has all of her belongings in it' every night. As well as new restaurants to eat in every evening. That's been going on for about 2 months now in her Memory Care AL, so we'll see what's coming next. It's always something, though, and this week she's extremely angry and agitated, refusing to take her pills and pocketing them in her room. The doctor is having them crushed up and put into her food, so we'll see how THAT goes.
Wishing you the best of luck.