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When you are out doing something fun with your mom, and she asked to go to her last home, you are doing exactly what you should by saying you need to get somewhere. Then change the subject and talk about something she enjoys talking about like a past pet or how delicious the ice cream was.
I have the same worry when I take my parents out or to a medical appointment etc… . This is where I might start hiring someone who can join them on these appointments. The difficult part is both have dementia and I usually attend their appointments in the office with them. I am not sure how that would work with an advocate there.
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Reply to Shellann
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My late husband had a lot of respect for his family doctor and his neurologist (also the medical director of his nursing home), as well as our priest. I would tell him that Dr. L (family doctor), Dr. S (neurologist), and Fr. Ron (priest) that they all thought it best that he stay there. I would take him for doctor, dentist, and optometrist appointments, haircuts (the woman who came to the facility 2x/week made more $$$ at her own salon and we could afford it), church at least 2x/month and lunch afterward, and to a sports bar to watch football and basketball games on TV. When he wanted to see our house, I'd drive him past it and he could see that there were children playing there and a dog (we never had a dog). I sold that house a few months before he entered the nursing home and moved us into a condo, which he never really recognized as "home". When we drove past the house, I'd remind him we didn't own the house any longer and couldn't move back there. Sometimes he understood and sometimes he didn't.
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Reply to swmckeown76
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This is a timely message for me - as I just registered with this web site. My Dad IS home, with my mother, but he frequently tries to leave to go "home". Sometimes it is back home with his mother who is long passed, and sometimes it's to go to the house they sold 2 years ago to move and be closer to family. My mother will call one of us three kids to talk to him. For a while we would just say, it's late and dark out, if you wait til the morning we will pick you up...he would always forget by then. One time he even packed his backpack to go. Unfortunately we can no longer get him to agree to wait, and he is actually trying to get out. He told me last night, "I am being held against my will and if I am not allowed to leave someone's going to get hurt" I have spent to day on the phone with doctors and social workers as we are now trying to place him somewhere. My mother is 82 and his primary caregiver and we feel she is not safe with him, and, she is just exhausted from caring for him. We have people coming in to help twice a week, and he goes to adult day care two days a week, but that doesn't help with the sundowning and staying up all night. What an evil disease this is, my dad is no longer my dad....
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Reply to Nashka
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MiaMoor Jun 26, 2024
I'm so sorry for what you are going through, Nashka.
It must be very sad to see your dad change so much, and no longer the man you knew and loved. And for your mum, too.
You are doing absolutely the right thing, protecting both your parents. I hope that it all works out for you and your family.
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My mum is frail and has dementia; my stepdad, who is her main carer, has mobility difficulties and his heart is in bad shape.
I had repeatedly tried persuading him to move out of their first floor flat (I think it's known as 2nd floor in America), as it doesn't have a lift. He dug his heels in, even though it was necessary and I had proposed that they just move to a ground floor flat when one became available in their sheltered housing complex.
Then, earlier this year, his hand was forced when Mum went into hospital and they refused to discharge her because she wasn't capable of using the stairs. There was talk of placing her in a home, which my stepdad really doesn't want.
Mum's social worker helped facilitate the move to a flat in a newer, larger retirement complex with a care company on site; a restaurant, bar and hairdressers; social areas and a lovely communal garden; plus different activities going on several times a week.
He hates it. Every time I visit he tells me how miserable he is there, that it's the worse place ever, and that he shouldn't have let me push him into it. He said he should have installed a stair lift for their old flat (an impossibility in the large communal stairwell of the building), which did make me question whether he is also experiencing cognitive decline.
The new complex isn't perfect, but it is a lovely place - far better than I will be able to afford in their position. Yet he had got used to working around the niggly little problems in the last flat and he's now of an age where changes are worse than unwelcome and the new niggles in this flat seem huge and insurmountable.
His negativity and refusal to try anything to make his situation better, along with the constant complaints and fault finding of me, are wearing me down. So, I don't visit as often as I used to. I've taken a step back, which hasn't gone down well, but I have had to for my own health.
Even without having dementia, my stepdad has found it difficult to settle into his new home and the repeated refrain was almost like he was saying he wanted to go home, even though he had the wherewithal to understand that wasn't possible.
I think it's as much to do with having an inflexible attitude as it is to do with having a cognitive impairment. After all, dementia can cause a person to lack flexibility; you can't adapt or change when you are no longer capable of learning.
(Sorry, this is a bit long winded in getting to the point. I just wanted to explain my thinking.)
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MiaMoor Jun 26, 2024
Just the other day, my stepdad said that he wished they had moved to a ground floor flat in the place they were before. I had to hold my tongue because I had been urging him to do just that for years, ever since my mum had a debilitating stroke 13 years ago.
That same year I'd had spinal surgery and struggled with the stairs whenever I picked up shopping or their prescriptions. I pointed out that, as the only one of their children helping them, I also needed them to be on the ground floor or in a building with a lift. And it would mean that Mum could get out and about more, which would help with her rehabilitation.
But no - he didn't want to, and what he wanted was paramount.
Now, my step-sister visits regularly and helps more than I do. I did feel guilty, but I'm getting over it.
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