Thursday, April 26, 2012

Tips for Transitioning to a Nursing Home



5 Tips for Transitioning your Loved One to a Nursing Home

The time may come when long-term care placement becomes necessary for a loved one with Alzheimer’s. It was true for me.

My husband lived at home for about 10 years after his bypass surgery in 1999 and subsequent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2003. When he was unable to walk on his own and I was exhausted from 24/7 care for him, I found I needed to seek placement for my husband in a nursing center.

Observing a few key tips can make the difference between a successful placement for memory loss or a difficult one. 

•       Familiarize yourself with nursing home etiquette. This website offers a helpful guide, www.fullcirclecare.org/ltcontinuum/visit.html.
•       Show gratefulness and kindness to the nursing staff by occasionally bringing in a box of candy
•       Ask for what you want for your loved one (brushing teeth, special activities, etc.)
•       Decorate the room so it feels like home
•       Identify one staff member to confide in and to share your concerns with

If your loved one appears restless and even aggressive towards others, offer to come in yourself or send in another relative during the day to help. No one should live in fear or have to endure threats from a resident who is out of control and aggressive.

Nursing staff provide much needed care with little to no thanks in return. An offer of your assistance may be welcome and even prevent total refusal of services, which would leave you searching for another placement or even taking your loved one back home.

It takes time for a new resident to adjust to a nursing center. It also takes time for the family to adjust. The Alzheimer’s Association offers resources on how to handle the transition.
Some research shows that people with Alzheimer’s can die quickly once placed in a memory loss unit, while other research shows they can live as long, if not longer, than staying at home. With continued nursing care, a balanced diet, regular visits from caregivers, and appreciation for who they are as an individual, a person with Alzheimer’s can even thrive in a memory loss unit.

Ask the nursing center for a copy of their Caregiver’s Partnership Agreement. If they don’t have one, ask them to consider an agreement in order to fully participate in the continued care of your loved one.


Ethelle G. Lord, former president of the Maine Gerontological Society of Maine, runs Alzheimer’s coaching and consulting business RememberingforYou.com. She is married to Maj. Larry S. Potter, USAF retired, and lives in Mapleton.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Question: Do you think the elderly are respected as much as they were when you were young?

Survey said: Yes, 8%; No, 84%, Not sure, 8%; Total votes, 372 at Caring.com

Thursday, March 1, 2012

7 tips to make life a little easier as a caregiver


Over 80% of family caregivers are unpaid, home bound, even isolated. These caregivers are overwhelmed with day-to-day responsibilities to someone with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Remembering4You recommends tips that make the work and life of a caregiver a little easier. Keeping it simple maximizes energy and minimizes the possibility of exhaustion. Here are 6 tips that are easy to adopt and implement in your daily caregiving schedule when providing care for someone with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia:



Tip #1: When caring for an elderly loved one, especially one with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, consistently keep meals at the same times every day. Plan your meals ahead of time and avoid giving too many options for meals: “Would you like a tuna sandwich; maybe a bowl of soup; or how about some casserole?” This can be confusing for your loved one, and even small decisions like what to have for lunch can cause anxiety. Try this: “We’re having chicken salad sandwiches for lunch. I know how much you love chicken salad.”



Tip #2: buy a lightweight water pitcher and keep it full. Keep it in an easily accessible place for your loved one. Gently remind them to keep drinking the water. Staying hydrated is important for their overall health and well-being.



Tip #3: If your loved one likes watching TV, buy a remote control with large numbers. Same goes for the phone – if they still chat on the phone with friend and family members, make sure to buy a phone with an oversized keypad they can use. Digital clocks with large numbers placed around the home would also beneficial.



Tip #4: Keep all of their belongings organized and easily accessible. This goes for clothes, too. Picking out an outfit will be much easier if clothes are neat and orderly. Sets can be matched in advanced and put on the same hanger. If the person with Alzheimer’s is still able to dress themselves, this will make it much easier for them to find the proper outfit all on the same hanger. If the family caregiver has to dress their loved one, this will save a great deal of time.



Tip #5: Allow your loved one to make as many of their own decisions as possible. This helps them to feel in control and retain some autonomy. The important thing is to limit the choices because too many choices can be overwhelming, even frustrating.



Tip #6: Know what they love, and do those things with them often. Find what abilities they still have such as playing cards. Talk to them about their memories and sit with them to watch an old movie together. Bake cookies and encourage daily exercises such as taking walks outside or in the mall. Take them out for coffee or tea in order to socialize and for the caregiver to be able to socialize also.


Tip #7: Treat your responsibilities of caregiver the same as you would any other job or employment. Create an operation’s manual that describes every task and every responsibility. If someone has to replace you for some respite or you hire a paid, part-time caregiver, this operation’s manual will be a life saver. Also include your daily tasks in order of importance, a column for remarks, and a column for the initials of the caregiver who performed the task. Remembering4You has a sample form for you to review at http://remembering4you.com/articles/tracking.html.



The first six 6 tips were adapted from “Home Care Tips, http://mashomecare.com/, March 2012”.


Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Common sense question for your consideration and discussion


How do you get a resistant parent to agree to an evaluation?

This is best handled by inviting the evaluator into your home. Introduce the evaluator as a visitor over a cup of tea or coffee, and allow the evaluation process to unfold as it should. At the beginning of the evaluation there are questions designed for the family caregiver and while this is going on, the evaluator has an opportunity to observe the person being evaluated. It will naturally follow that questions will be posed to the individual and you can trust these evaluators are professionals who can be discrete and considerate. You may want to let the evaluator know on the phone that the parent or relative may be resisting to having this evaluation ~ Dr. Ethelle Lord at http://remembering4you.com.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Beware: Nursing homes are not for sick indivdiuals

Providing three square meals a days and receiving help with getting dressed in a nursing home should really be no longer acceptable. This is the traditional way. Recently I received a call from the social worker where my husband resides in a dementia unit at a nursing facility. She wanted to know if I just wanted him kept comfortable and hydrated since he was unresponsive, or did I want him sent to the hospital. Naturally I jumped from my chair and said: “He just had the beginning of a head cold. What is going on? You really do not have enough staff for one-on-one care which is what he needs. I will do it and I am coming over now”. I felt my husband was home again and I had to suddenly provide the 24-hour caregiving I used to provide him when he was at home.

With my bags still intact from two days before having just visited with him for Christmas, it did not take me long to get in the car to drive the 300+ miles from home to the nursing center where he is in Maine. Normally it takes me 5 hours to get there and another 5 hours to return home. This time it took me 3.5 hours to get there as I was able to speed and did not stop for anything. I knew that hearing my voice and knowing I was there to advocate for him would make all the difference in the world.

 He had stopped walking on his own in the spring of 2010. After 10 years of providing his family caregiving, almost all by myself except for the last year, I could no longer continue to lift on him, support him physically, without getting sick myself. This is a common outcome of family caregivers who cannot see the forest for the trees and find themselves sick, even dying before the individual with Alzheimer’s. Determined to be here for him to the end, I had to make the difficult decision to let him go into long-term care on May 18, 2010.

The head cold this year often leads to pneumonia. In individuals with Alzheimer’s who are not mobile, this is extremely dangerous. My husband was treated in November for a UTI. The attending physician usually treats him twice in a row as his UTI is quite well established and difficult to treat. UTI is a common condition in long-term residents. For whatever reason this time the doctor did not treat him twice and so he was still infected. The head cold did result in the beginning of pneumonia for him. This was all discovered on the second day I was there when he was taken to the emergency room with a temperature of 102+.

At the nursing facility the professional caregivers provided the traditional care: changing him and feeding him his meals (although I fed him since I was there and willing to do whatever was necessary to provide him some comfort). Although it is well known and recognized that drinking plenty of fluids help flush the urinary system, the staff at the nursing facility was not able to provide the extra time to do that. This was left to me and I was grateful to have been able to rush to his side to keep him alive.

At times I felt I was in the way and witnessing events that regularly go on in this long-term facility. At times I was grateful to witness the 1-2% of professional caregivers that give their all, put up with all the frustrations of under staffing, stay beyond their shift, and even called in to enquire about an update on my husband. Without my active participation as the family caregiver, my husband would not be here with me today. He may not have a lot of time left as he is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, but every minute counts for us. You might say that we are a very tight couple.

Moral of this experience: Seize every opportunity, every moment. If you have someone in a long-term facility and they become ill, rush to their side and stay with them around the clock to provide any type of caregiving you can. If they are not ill but simply residing there for any reason, visit and call often to enquire about their wellbeing. Target one individual, in my case it is the social worker, as a primary contact. Hold that person responsible and accountable for what is going on there, or not going on. By your caring actions it will be clear that your loved one is not just another person occupying a bed in their facility. Furthermore you are asking the facility to go beyond the traditional services of feeding and dressing. Now you are ready to partner with the facility instead of just being a customer. Tom Krause said “There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them”.