Peeling back the layers
Happy February!
This month we are going to discuss helping families come to terms with their aging parents needs.
Often times it can be extremely comforting for an adult child to have parents who are aging together. Even when one parent has a diagnosis of dementia or other chronic illness, the second parent takes on the burden of care so it isn’t placed on the rest of the family. We get the calls when this symbiotic system starts comes to an end or begins to break down.
An adult daughter called us shortly after her father had passed away. Her mother had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment two years prior. When he was alive, her father had, understandably, downplayed his wife’s deficits for the children. During visits, when a question she couldn’t answer would be asked, he would quickly jump in and answer for her. He would frequently make excuses for his wife when she displayed strange behaviors at family gatherings, explaining that she may not have slept well the night before, or that she had a virus making her “ a little off”. However, once her primary care taker was no longer there, the depth of her mother’s deficits were glaring.
During her visits after her father’s passing, the daughter began to notice new dents on her mother’s car, and she wondered if her mother was bathing as frequently as she should be. In addition, it seemed like her mother was loosing weight, and the daughter was concerned she was not remembering to eat daily meals. Becoming increasingly worried, she began to call each day to check in, one day when she was unable to reach her mother for hours, she later discovered that her mother had gotten lost coming home from a doctor’s appointment, and a police officer had to escort her home. The daughter knew that day that her mother’s impairments had long passed the point of allowing her to live safely at home without the support her father had been providing.
As care managers, our job was first to help the daughter come to term with the fact that her mother’s disease had brought her to the point where she was no longer safe at home, and no longer able to make her own decisions regarding her health care choices or living situation. With our recommendations, a neuro-psychological assessment was given, and the results indicated moderate to severe cognitive impairment, and recommended that her mother stop driving, and have assistance with all care.
Together with the daughter, we determined that the best choice in this situation was a move to a memory care assisted living facility, and find the most appropriate one that fit her mother’s needs. Her mother was in her late 70’s, had a progressive dementia, and her finances would not allow for her to live at home with the 24 hour supervision she required. In addition, she was depressed and isolated after the passing of her husband. As is this case with many of these moves, her mother took about three months to transition to her new environment. During that time, we were able to offer some peace of mind and reassurance by checking in to see her once a week to help ensure all of her needs were being met. Eventually, her mother settled in to her new environment and benefited from the socialization and oversight the facility offered. It was very difficult for the daughter to manage her feelings as we peeled back the layers of her mother’s disease, but she eventually did find the peace of mind that she had made the best decision for her mother.
Thinking happy thoughts of Spring!!
Jennifer Pilz, MPT, CMC
Aging Life Care Professional
Riverside Care Advisors
25 Storey Avenue Suite 8 #163
Newburyport, MA, 01950
United States
