Martha H

My Mom has been in a nursing home now for 4 months. Just for those of you contemplating or planning how to care best for your AD Mom, Dad or spouse, this is basically what her life is like there.

She wakes up in her bright cheerful single room now decorated with large colorful photos and paintings from her old room at my brother's home, including one of her whole nuclear family in 1927 - herself and her sister dressed in short 'flapper' dresses (no waistline) and marcelled hair .. looking lovely, like something out of Ziegfield's Follies (you youngsters have to check the history books for that).

She is changed and bathed and dressed, and wheeled in her wheelchair to the dining room where 30 people eat together. They stay there and talk long after the food is eaten, and someone comes to wheel Mom to the next activity of the day. Something is going on virtually all the time, there's a lounge with residents and guests sitting around talking, or, mainly in the aftenoons, musical entertainment, bingo etc.

The more luicid patients go to their rooms and do the things they like: one makes scrapbooks, one paints, etc. Mom can't do any of that any more. She has her TV and her good radio, but needs help turning them on/off. At lunch they sit together and eat again, and almost every afternoon Bill (my brother) takes her outdoors for a walk on the NH grounds, or to sit in the wintry sun in a gazebo. From out there he often dials my number and I get to talk to Mom.

At suppertime they all eat together again, and often there is some kind of entertainment in the evening, a movie, a concert, a game, etc. Mom is taken back to her room at about 9 PM and that's when my sister usually calls.

When you ask her about it she will invariably say "no one has been to see me. No one has called. I have nothing to do. It is lonely here. I will soon be walking and go home." and the only possible answer is "that's too bad, I'll call more often, Yes, you will soon be home."

She tries to 'walk' a little every time Bill is there, but never gets further than a few steps, and gives up. They change her if they need to, but sometimes she says she has to go and they take her to the bathroom. There are enough Aides so she gets plenty of attention. 5 patients to one Nurse's aide. They are all lovely people who really care about the patients.

I think as an alternative to caring for her in one of our homes, this is a good soution. She doesn't need to remember anything, decide anything, or worry about anything. She is like a very small child. But not unhappy. She laughs a lot and tells her jokes. Often so skewed that the funny part never appears... but she laughs. There's an RN and a doctor on duty around the clock.

It is not so bad .. and she is warm and safe and fed and medicated (they remember her pills, she can't) ...

Love,

Martha