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Hate being locked up in Memory Care
My husband has now been in the Memory Care unit of the CCRC I am moving into soon. He has been there 2 months and wanting to escape.
All he wants to do is physical and speech therapy and exercise with his personal trainer. He does not like the arts and crafts activities and has no one to talk to except the staff. There are 10 women and 2 men besides him and, of course, conversations are few and don’t make sense. My husband is more verbal and can hold a conversation- he has Alzheimer’s and Lewy Body Disease and so his dementia is different.
The staff try to engage but he is often anxious, agitated and refuses showers and getting dressed unless the nursing staff are well skilled in working with him.
They are afraid of his agitation so they don’t push.
He is on medications that help with mood, calming and sleep but I’m not sure it’s a working combination for him.
I spoke with the nurse manager and she is aware but defensive when I suggest they try harder with skilled communication and I also told her the activities don’t match him. He is the newest person on the unit. He is also the loudest and in many ways good and bad adds life to the otherwise sedate unit.
The Lewy Body shows up in many ways. His moods, sleep and also his walking.
He has Parkinsonism not Parkinson’s. He leans to one side and his gait changes when he is tired.
I’m getting him out more and to Independent Living activities. He enjoys them and everyone knows and loves him so he feels ok out of the unit but when he goes back he is often angry especially at me when I leave.
I often leave in tears. I was going almost every day but it seems better if I take a couple days off.
We are having a care conference with the nurse manager, a social worker and Liason nurse. I’d love to have all the therapies and activities there too.
I would love to hear how others handle the acclimation to Memory Care and especially with Lewy Body.
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Hi, and hugs to you.
I love the idea of folks mailing birthday cards with their photo, I'm stealing that idea.
You've done so much work to get to where you are now.
I hope you get to enjoy a trip or something special for you, now.
All the best to you. 🌺
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3 Reactions@judimahoney Thank You. Hugs back to you and please do steal the idea. ❤️
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1 ReactionMary, does he like to use a computer or ipad? Lumosity is an online program that has many cognitive games with instructions. We have been doing this for years and we both have several favorites, like a racecar run with obstacles to maneuvre, a pinball machine, collored trains coming out of a barn you must change switches to get them home, etc. Jim’s ability to do the different games is changing but there are so many to choose from and if I set him up he will play for an hour or so. They have a free trial membership for a week then a very inexpensive annual membership for individuals or family of 5.
I also recently got him this amazingly simple concept wooden puzzle of 4 color group shapes he must place to repeat a game card. He loves it and will again play for an hour or so. I saw it recently on Amazon for $14.
His new speech therapist is working with him on making him a memory book with info and pictures of his life so he will stir up memories of himself and people as he enjoys looking at old pictures.
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2 ReactionsAnother thought, does the memory care allow visiting pets program? If he likes animals, my daughter with her Golden Retreiver and others do this every week and the residents LOVE getting to hug and play with animals.
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2 ReactionsThank you Boppi. He can’t use electronics at all and does not engage in the brain games anymore. What he gets excited about is meeting w his speech therapist where they work on just getting the words out. He also loves physical therapy and his personal trainer. He was always into fitness so loves movement and exercise. He also loves music.
He got his first birthday card ( see previous post) and the night nurse who FaceTimes me when she is tucking him in shared him looking at the card. That seemed to bring him joy. ❤️
A problem is that he really is judgmental about obesity and the wonderful and sweet activity therapist is obese so he has a hard time if she leads exercise etc.
He has no filter and right now he is over medicated or wrongly medicated so very loopy and a fall risk.
Care conference today. I want to go in calm and as a collaborator and not a complainer but I’ve been worried about him.
He has become more aggressive, angry and depressed.
This is sooooooo hard.
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4 Reactions