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It's cheaper and saves me a 45 minute - hour drive for my visits 4X a week, but Dad is MISERABLE. Like others have said, my Dad refuses to even TRY the activities at the ALF outside of meals, and after being emotionally beat up for the last couple of years, I have decided not to take on that responsibility. You can't change a zebra's stripes.
I've been struggling with the fact that Dad is so terribly confused about everything, and the move seems to have exacerbated his dementia symptoms, but I had to remind myself that he hasn't been in the new place 10 whole days yet. Things will get better.
Furthermore, dementia or not, some seniors are MASTER manipulators. They are "so lonely" until you come around. They can't eat the food at the facility but will gobble up any outside food you bring or restaurant food.
I'm learning that I am doing the best I can given the situation. For those that said move Mom, they may have different resources or time or expertise when caring for a sensitive senior.
I ALMOST guilted myself into moving Dad in with me when he couldn't afford the other ALF. Though the numbers showed a MINOR decrease in expenses and I could have saved on rent if I delegated half of it to Dad, I would have been completely miserable.
Managing someone at home with minimal help is HARD. You have to keep up with more, and I would have been solely responsible for getting him around, making sure he ate, and have the extra burden of coordinating his care when I had to travel for work.
At 40, that's a big NO THANK YOU. I'm learning that I am doing a helluva lot more than my Dad's other kids who don't even come to see him, and there's no easy solution to this difficult situation (although the doctor's pockets seem to be getting mighty fat at the sake of these poor seniors suffering... yet I digress)
Do the best you can with what you have to work with. Be grateful that you can afford to place your LO in a facility. That alone is a blessing. Cut yourself a break. This is hard, and at least you know that your LO is safe and monitored at the ALF.
Live your life. You don't want your epitaph to say Here lies _____. They spent their lives taking care of mom and doing nothing else while your LO's would read ________lived a full live of adventure....
You're doing a great job in spite of the circumstances (OK I just gave myself a pep talk)
If you are the relative in the place of the carer, the best advice is - wait and see. Be patient. Put up with all the insults and bad temper. Wait for the patient to become acclimatised and accepting. If you notice later that there are signs of lack of care, take this up with management - all facilities are being paid money to take care of old people, so you need to get bang for your buck.
Make the patient's surroundings as homey as possible with familiar pictures on the wall, photo abums full of photos of family and friends. They are fun to leaf through even after names and faces have been forgotten. Visits are important. But never give in and offer to take the patient back to live with you. NEVER. You would both suffer.