How do you keep your mom or dad safe in a memory care community or assisted living? A retired cop moved into my mother-in-law’s memory care community and has been demonstrating sexual and violent aggression against her, other residents, and staff. This is what my family is facing now. Read about the incidents in, “Violence in Memory Care,” HERE.
This is a list of whom we have emphatically voiced our concerns:
Caregivers
The nurse
The Administrator
Two ombudsmen
The State of Washington (surveyors of licensed assisted living)
Adult Protective Services
Our family requested a care conference to discuss the safety of my mother-in-law, Amy. Two ombudsmen, the administrator, three adult children and myself attended it. It was the worst care conference that I have ever experienced in my 17 years working as a professional in senior living. On a personal level, I have attended numerous care conferences for nine years as an advocate for my own mother who had dementia. There is always a conclusion at the end of the care conference that provides some sense of hope for improving care or concerns.
Why was this care conference so bad?
The administrator would only talk about Amy. She refused to discuss Amy’s safety in regards to the aggressive cop, because of HIPPA. She refused to share any measures or policies that the staff was following for Amy’s safety. Are you kidding me? I specifically asked, “What are you doing to protect her?” She said that she could not answer that question and kept talking in circles.
The ombudsmen were no help either. They said they could only discuss Amy because we gave them permission to do so. They could not discuss any other residents or the aggressive retired cop because they had not been given permission to do so. Nobody would address the elephant in the room, which was an aggressive retired cop with dementia preying on vulnerable residents.
What about Amy’s safety? What about the other residents’ safety?
The state did a surprise visit to the memory care community last week and said there are no new violations. This community is in a rural part of Washington State. There is not another community in the local area.
Any advice from senior living professionals? What else can we do?
Tip: For adult children looking for memory care or assisted living. Interview the administrator, before you move your parent into the community. Find out how long they have worked there. We did this and the answer was two years. Life was good for Amy until this experienced administrator moved on.
Diane Masson is a senior living expert who has authored two 5-star rated books. Her new book is an all-encompassing answer guide for seniors called, “Your Senior Housing Options,” designed to help seniors navigate choices quickly. The second book was written for senior living professionals called, “Senior Housing Marketing – How To Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full.” Reach out to her through her website: Tips2Seniors.com and read the weekly blog.
Discover key differences between rental facilities versus Continuing Care Retirement Communities. Do you have enough financial resources if you need to be in a higher level of care for an extended period of time? Always consider your future health care needs today. Who will provide your care and at what cost? Do you want 100% responsibility for your future health care costs or do you want to share the risk with a Continuing Care Retirement Community? Author, Diane Masson, shares her insights from her new book, “Your Senior Housing Options.” Enjoy my TV interview below and for weekly tips join at: Www.Tips2Seniors.com
Your Senior Housing Options,”has a simplistic title, but what’s inside this new book can save a you months of research time. Hear Diane Masson’s interviewof how her mother and in-law’s faced the pivotal decision to plan ahead or wait until a crisis. Learn the pitfalls from transitioning from your home to senior housing. Understand what questions to ask, insider tips and dirty secrets revealed. For weekly tips join at: Www.Tips2Seniors.com
Diane Masson has worked in senior housing for 17 years and is the regional marketing director for two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern CA (Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet). Her first book “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” is being utilized by senior housing professionals across the country. Both her first book and second book, “Your Senior Housing Options,” have a 5-star rating on Amazon.com.
My mom is 91 years old and has vascular dementia. She has slowly declined over the last nine years. Through my research, I can assume she is in one of the last two stages of dementia (there are seven). My mom has been in skilled nursing care for the last 9½ months and needs 100% assistance. The last thing that she could do on her own was feed herself.
Now she has dramatically declined in the last month and even needs assistance with eating. She is still a good eater, but does not have the cognition to eat on her own. It is too much work for her. Her short-term memory seems like it has decreased to about one-second.
Antipsychotic medications have reduced the amount and the intensity of her delusions, anxiety, crying and irritability. There have been medications added, increased and decreased in the last four months. It has been a balancing act to try to improve the quality of her emotions and cognition without having her become lethargic.
Now my mom’s memory loss has affected her ability to walk. At the last care conference meeting, we discussed the quality of her life and whether it is a good idea to try to make someone walk or not. It takes constant encouragement to get her walking and she keeps trying to sit down. I have advocated for the caregivers to keep trying to walk her daily. They never make her, but lots of encouragement can produce a walk to breakfast or lunch. By dinnertime, my mom’s Sundowners Syndrome with anxiety and crying make it impossible to walk her.
My mother seems confused and miserable when she walks and just wants to sit down. I want to try to decide in the next week, if I should just let advocacy regarding walking stop all together. In my opinion walking seems so important because it gets her circulation going and her memory seems to clear up. When the walking officially stops, the memory will for sure get worse. Maybe I just need to accept my mom is in the final stage of dementia and have her enjoy what she can…like playing with the new bird at the community.
Please share your successes, failures or comment below to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available at Amazon.com with a 5-star rating. The book is required reading at George Mason University as a part of its marketing curriculum. Within this book, the author developed a sales & marketing method with 12 keys to help senior living providers increase their occupancy. Masson developed this expertise as a marketing consultant, sought-after blogger for senior housing and a regional marketing director of continuing care retirement communities in several markets. She has also been a corporate director of sales and a mystery shopper for independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled care nursing communities in multiple states. Currently, Masson is setting move-in records as the regional marketing director of two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Interestingly, this career started when she was looking for a place for her own mom and helped her loved one transition through three levels of care.
My theory of 10 years is now officially broken. I believed that if you had a mean parent they turned nice with dementia and if you had a nice parent they would turn mean with dementia. My random sample was everyone that I have ever spoken to about this theory.
Well, the tables have turned and my mom has turned mean again. Years ago, the ugly side of my mom was only exposed behind closed doors. The mental abuse for years took a tool on all my siblings and I. In fact, when they each turned 18, all of them moved to other states. I stayed to protect my dad. I figured if she took half her wrath out on me, he would only be subjected to it 50 percent of the time.
In college, psychology classes opened my eyes to mental illness and depression. After my mean mom did not attend my graduation or marriage, I was done. A wonderful counselor taught me how to deal with it. When I spoke to my mom and she was mean, I would say, “I am sorry that this conversation is not going the way I hoped, I have to go now, bye.” After I did this three times, my mom’s treatment of me turned around. She has treated me well for 28 years.
Now, she is in the late stages of vascular dementia. I got a call two days ago saying she is yelling and swearing at the staff. Oh boy, my nice mom is gone. Say hello, to sundowners syndrome and her living in the past of about 30 years ago. Yesterday, I went to spend some quality time with her. The mean look was on her face. My mom harshly said, “Where have you been? You have a lot of gaul showing up now. Why haven’t you come to see me? Everyone is stealing all my things. The neighbors are selling off all my clothes. You are just showing me defiance. I am hungry, no one has fed me in days.” Then she pointed to one of the staff and said, “See, she is crying.” (No staff was crying.)
Little Diane, felt she was back in high school again. I kept my head and tried to talk her off the ledge (so to speak). She just continued ranting and repeating what she already had said. She was visible agitated. I handed her the banana I had brought and she relaxed by 50%. Every time she repeated that she was hungry, I invited her to eat the banana. She said, “I am not hungry, I will save it for later.” My husband and I continued to talk to her in a calm and reassuring way and an invisible sundowners switch finally turned her back to my nice mom.
About a half hour later, I explained to her that she had memory loss. I explained how I was helping her by having a doctor (podiatrist) trim her toenails this week and she screamed, “Don’t touch me, don’t cut my nails” at the top of her lungs. She said, “I did? Well one doctor hurt me a long time ago.” I told her about another doctor who came to do an eye exam and now she has new glasses and can read again. When she said that she could not understand the staff, I said, “Yes, your hearing is bad and we have an audiologist scheduled to come in and maybe get you a hearing aid.” She loved the explanations, enjoyed me being there, holding her hand and feeling calmness.
Eventually, I said, “Mother I heard that you were yelling and swearing at the staff this week.” She said, “I did? I can’t remember. I didn’t mean to.” Then I said, “When I came in today, you were mean to me and yelled at me.” My mom said, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to, I don’t remember.” Well, all was forgiven and I was so glad that I did not walk out earlier that day by reliving the harsh criticism and mental abuse of the past.
If your parent has turned mean, just remember it is the monster disease of dementia, sundowners syndrome or Alzheimer’s. (I know it’s easier said that done.) As my mom sundowners continues to progress, I may have to hold onto this apology forever. She may not have the brain cells left in vascular dementia to be cognitive enough to apologize.
Her psychiatrist says the sundowners has progressed to the point of needing medications to help her. I am very protective of my mom and don’t want to over medicate her, but my mom has been in her own daily mental torture for about three weeks. My goal is to keep her comfortable and pain free. If the medications can give her peace, I am now all for them.
Please share your successes, failures or comment below to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available at Amazon.com with a 5-star rating. The book is required reading at George Mason University as a part of its marketing curriculum. Within this book, the author developed a sales & marketing method with 12 keys to help senior living providers increase their occupancy. Masson developed this expertise as a marketing consultant, sought-after blogger for senior housing and a regional marketing director of continuing care retirement communities in several markets. She has also been a corporate director of sales and a mystery shopper for independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled care nursing communities in multiple states. Most recently Masson was recruited to consult for two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Interestingly, this career started when she was looking for a place for her own mom and helped her loved one transition through three levels of care.
An adult child or power of attorney plays a crucial role at a care conference. You can literally hold the pieces of the puzzle that an assisted living, skilled nursing care or memory care need in order to enhance the lifestyle of the resident.
No one alive knows my mom better than me. She cannot always advocate on her own behalf, because she has vascular dementia. If I asked her, “What would you rather have for dinner, prime rib or salmon?” My mom would say, “Diane you know what I like, you decide.” Even with her dementia, she knows that I will select her favorite choices from the past.
Recently, at my mom’s care conference in skilled nursing care a puzzle started to come together. My mom was having episodes of greater confusion. It might be three days in row and then she would be fine again. Was my mom’s dementia getting worse or was it something else? Would she need to start a new drug?
As we were brainstorming possibilities, I remembered how lack of sleep could intensive my mom’s dementia in the past. We figured out that the bed alarm of some of her recent roommates was affecting her sleep. When she experienced less sleep, then she would have episodes of greater delusion during the day.
It was an aha moment, so now they are going to focus on roommates who don’t need constant alarms going off. Hopefully my mom will improve. As a Boomer child, I have to be willing to accept that my mom’s dementia is getting worse, but maybe my advocacy can continue to help improve her quality of life for now.
Please share your success, failures or comment below to join the conversation and interact with other senior living professionals on what is currently being effective to increase occupancy on a nationwide basis.
Diane Twohy Masson is the author of “Senior Housing Marketing – How to Increase Your Occupancy and Stay Full,” available at Amazon.com with a 5-star rating. The book is required reading at George Mason University as a part of its marketing curriculum. Within this book, the author developed a sales & marketing method with 12 keys to help senior living providers increase their occupancy. Masson developed this expertise as a marketing consultant, sought-after blogger for senior housing and a regional marketing director of continuing care retirement communities in several markets. She has also been a corporate director of sales and a mystery shopper for independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled care nursing communities in multiple states. Most recently Masson was recruited to consult for two debt-free Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California – Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet, California. Interestingly, this career started when she was looking for a place for her own mom and helped her loved one transition through three levels of care.
How do you keep your mom or dad safe in a memory care community or assisted living? A retired cop moved into my mother-in-law’s memory care community and has been demonstrating sexual and violent aggression against her, other residents, and staff. This is what my family is facing now. Read about the incidents in, “Violence in Memory Care,” HERE.
