Dementia can be the enemy of aging in place
Happy New Year!
It’s 2019, and time to set goals and objectives for the year ahead. We are here and ready to assist with any of your elder care or disability related needs!
A few years ago, an adult daughter reached out to us with concerns about her elderly parents who were living at home. The wife had a diagnosis of dementia and the husband was the sole provider and caregiver. However, caring for her was becoming increasingly difficult as he was also aging, and developing health related issues of his own. He was getting burnt out physically and emotionally, and needed some private duty home health assistance to take some of the burden off of him. This couple was fortunate enough to be able to finance any amount of long term care needed. However, the problem was that the wife refused to let anyone else care for her. No amount of discussion or reasoning with her about why she needed a caregiver was going to work because she had little to no insight about what her limitations were. When someone came each day to assist her with her activities of daily living, her lack of short term memory made it so that every day was like having a stranger in the house, even if the night before she had appeared to understand. Even though the caregivers had experience working with seniors afflicted with dementia, there was no convincing this woman to allow them to assist her. She would verbally reprimand them on a regular basis, and kick them out of the home, refusing the care.
This is the most common scenario we see when someone, even if finances allow, can not safely stay in the home. Our client wasn’t allowing the caregivers to thoroughly assist her with her personal care needs which would have allowed for her to maintain proper hygiene. This led to multiple Urinary Tract Infections, which would only make her more confused. Ultimately, her frail husband would be the only one allowed to help his wife. The situation was not one that could be sustained.
In this case, the husband, felt a strong obligation to move with his wife, when we determined that the plan would be to move her to an assisted living facility. Together with the couple’s adult children, were able to locate a facility that could suit both of their needs. The place we chose, would allow the husband to continue to drive, participate in long outdoor walks and exercise programs, while his wife was able to get the care that she needed with her activities of daily living in addition to adding some socialization with her peers. We often find that when someone refuses care in their own home, they are are more accepting when they are in a more supportive environment and are introduced to receiving care their from day one. This was the case for our client. I’m not going to tell you this was a smooth transition, it was challenging to ensure that both of these clients needs were met, and it took a lot of time and tweaks to get the right balance of care for both of them. Neither of the clients were running with open arms toward the idea of community living. It took a “just right approach” that we were able to help their family strategize out. However, in the end both clients settled in, and maintained a higher quality of life than they were experiencing at home.
