Hi all,
We will be moving my grandma this week to an apartment in a memory care unit (not a nursing home, but more secure than assisted living). We took her to visit last week, and upon meeting a couple of the other folks living there, she immediately noticed something was "different" about them. Yesterday, she became upset, and wanted to know who lives in this place we're moving her - "is it people who are losing their minds?" she asked. We chose this place because partially because she will have her own apartment, as she is a very private person.
She is definitely advanced enough to need a secure facility, and more care than we can provide at this point, but we are worried (based on the others we have met there) that she is not nearly as advanced as most of them(she's still generally aware of her surroundings & it seems as though many of them may not be), and will become very angry about this since she believes she is just fine. Unfortunately, she is very critical/bothered by others who are "different" in any way. Anybody else experienced anything similar to this?
I placed my dad in April of this year and to this day he asks me to get him out of there as most of the people living there are "nuts".
My dad still is more aware than some of the other residents, but same as your situation, he cannot live alone. Luckily there are plenty of residents that are more like dad, seem to be normal, yet dad won''t get too attached with anyone as he thinks he's leaving soon.
I don't really have an answer, just want to let you know my dad realizes some people have problems, while he believes he is fine. All I do is keep telling him he should make friends and hang out with the men that are ok, like him.
So we moved Grandma today - she took it exceptionally well - until dinner time that is. We left her there for dinner and when I came back she said, "that's enough of that.. I'm not eating there anymore". I guess that some of the residents had to be fed and she said it was awful and gross and it made her feel sick. I told her to try sitting by those who don't have to be fed and she said, "well I sat down first and then they sat by me". Not sure how to fix this one... We'll have to ask the staff tomorrow. She also has a neighbor who knocks on her door randomly - once to tell us to be quiet, and another time just chatting unawarely. Grandma is completely confused by this. This is so frustrating to watch because her mind is still so much better than most of them - yet she wouldn't be safe in assisted living. I feel like by exposing her to this environment we are only going to send her downhill faster. What a long day. I don't want to go back tomorrow - so I can only imagine how she must feel.
First off give yourself a pat on the back for arranging the move so it happened relatively smoothly - that's a great credit to all involved.
I didn't respond when you first posted because I know exactly the problem you are describing, and I couldn't think of anything to help. But now I do have a suggestion.
SIL escaped from respite care last year because she didn't want to be "locked up with all those old people". It gave her the creeps. In that instance, most if not all the people she was with were much better off than her in the cognitive area - but I think a couple of people who had had strokes freaked her out.
Unfortunately for her, having escaped once, means that when she does go into fulltime care, it will be a secure facility, and we worry very much about that. It is likely that she, like your grandmother, will be much more aware than the other residents - she has always had a keen awareness of her dementia and I have recently come to understand that this can be a characteristic of what kind of dementia a person has.
Fast forward - we have been working hard for the past couple of months getting SIL to accept daycare. At first she was really resistant - "I don't need to be with all those crazy people" etc. etc. Because it is important for us and her that she do this, we never got into the conversation (it would give her a chance to get worked up - the more she repeats things the more she comes to believe they are true). We just gave a bit of sympathy, made a positive point about the place, and changed the subject. So she did drop it a bit.
THEN, out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, she started to tell me how absolutely brilliant at crosswords she was. How she was the star of the class, and she wasn't stupid after all!!! Eventually I pieced together that this was a game they play at daycare - they call out the questions and SIL can answer some (she wouldn't have a hope in hades of sitting down and doing a crossword herself). I know the staff have been putting huge effort into getting her to like being there, and they seem to have made a big fuss of this. The buzz she got out of it was enough to just about break my heart. We always make a point of reinforcing with her that she is not stupid, she just has a memory problem - but a lot of people treat her as though she is stupid, and she knows it.
So, if it is any help at all - finding something that your grandma can do there that gives her a feeling of accomplishment and validates her different status from some of the other residents may be of help.
The staff at the daycare centre have tried lots of things to get SIL to like being there - their initial approach was to ask her advice as an expert gardener about what they need to do with their grounds (that didn't fly thankfully - they would have no garden left by the time she had finished lol). But there may be some things the staff at your Grandma's place can come up with that make her feel special and valued.
The place you have found for your Grandma sounds perfect, and I hope things will work out so that she can find some happiness and peace there.
Anna, even if you didn't have an "answer", it's good to hear the similarities. It's funny that they can be so unaware of some things, yet so aware of the fact that others around them are "crazy"! I too am encouraging Grandma to just ignore the "crazy ones" and chat with the others. Although I detected a hint of sarcasm, she came back from lunch today and told me she'd just gotten done eating with her young lady friends.... so much better than last night!
Georgie, thanks for the advice. Things were calmer today - she still wanted to go home of course and feels useless, but we're working on the latter part. The staff addressed her issues with eating at the dinner table and guided her to the other table where she could sit with those who feed themselves, so that helped a lot. I brought a few plants over today since she loves caring for them, and the staff is going to try to get her involved in their cleaning activities since that is a big part of how she kept busy at home.
Not a fun process, but smoother these first couple days than I'd ever dreamed it would be - to those who will be making moves in the future - stay optimistic!
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