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Please know that choosing to be an advocate for your husband in a facility is a wise option.
In many cases, an advocate for a resident in a facility can accomplish more than a person who is caring for family member at home. A facility provides an entire staff at their disposal 24/7.
Since you have hired caregivers to help out during the week, you already know that this is too much for you to handle on your own. Even with part time help it becomes too much.
There are several areas of your posting that confirms for me that it’s time for your husband to enter a facility.
Your husband is delusional and confused. He chokes and gasps for air. You feel overwhelmed.
Just feeling overwhelmed is
reason enough for placement, let alone dealing with the additional issues that are present.
Your husband will only need more help as time goes on.
How long have you been his caregiver at home? I was my mom’s caregiver at home for years. I know how exhausting it becomes.
Staff members in facilities have stated that it is best to place someone sooner rather than later.
Placing your husband sooner will allow him to adjust better to his new surroundings. It’s better for you too. You can return to being his wife and oversee his care.
Have you toured any facilities in your area? Go visit a few of them when the caregivers are with your husband.
Wishing you and your husband well.
Thank you for this thoughtful and enlightening post. Your husband is very lucky to have you in charge.
I'm particularly interested that Covid caused a downhill slide for him. I know others who have told me the same thing, and I have observed declines in friends such as you mentioned. One, who had no prior cognitive issues before mild Covid, is part of a brain study researching why his brain fog never went away, resulting in his finally entering a continuum of care facility where he can step up to memory care when necessary. This effect of Covid on cognitive decline is presently being studied further in the US and other countries. It's why I am so adamant about protecting my husband, who has dementia, from getting Covid. We don't want his decline to be hastened by that.
I feel that this aspect of cognitive decline/Covid has been buried now that people want Covid to be over, even though it isn't. Could you post more about your husband's experience in getting Covid, whether it was a mild case, and how he contracted it? What anti-viral drugs did he take for Covid when he had it? Also why you think it contributed to his decline. This is not a scientific study. I just want to know how to help my husband if he gets Covid despite all our precautions. I respect your opinion because you can approach the issue from a nurse's point of view.
I'm glad you found a good place for your husband.
My late husband with vascular dementia developed aspiration pneumonia and almost died. He ended up with sepsis and septic shock and completely bedridden after that.
His doctor said that because of my husbands dementia, his brain was forgetting to tell his throat to close while eating and drinking, thus allowing everything to go into his lungs.
It's very serious, so please have your husbands swallowing tested before it's too late.
And to answer your initial question....it's usually time when you have to ask the question.
I wish you well in finding the appropriate facility for you husband where you can get back to just being his loving wife and advocate.
Good thing because the father died and the wife who has dementia was already in AL, after he died we moved her to MC, where she still is now.
Always better to be ahead of the curve. Dementia has no cure, he will continue to get worse, consider doing it now.
Take care of you too!
If you're feeling overwhelmed, it's time for him to go to memory care.
I've done homecare for a lot of people in exactly the situation you're in with your husband. What I always told a family was that it's usually better for a person to go to AL or memory care before the dementia advances to the point where they are unable to acclimate to a new place. I think now would be a good time to find a memory care residence for your husband.
There are even facilities that have independent senior living (for the spouse without dementia) and a memory care facility all at the same location. This way a couple can see each other all day, but the competent spouse is not responsible for care. This could also be an option for you.
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