Help with a move - how to minimize trauma
My mom has been living in an assisted living apartment, but since my dad passed away a year and a half ago, she has slowly slipped into needed more assistance and than they can and are willing to give. We have found a 'memory' unit in a nearby town and are making arrangments for her to move there rather than to a nursing home situation. It seems like a much better and caring community given her current situation. She is wheel chair bound but mostly due to her unwillingness to continue any exercise program or use her walker. Other than mild to medium dementia she doesn't have other physical problems. But her dementia keeps her pretty uncooperative, manipulative, and depressed, crying lots. She doesn't want to move, but complains of being lonely all the time, even when visitors are present. My question is how to arrange for her move. When to tell her, and how to physically arrange for the move. Anything is going to cause her more anxiety, but we'd like to minimize it if at all possible. The bad thing is that we need to move much of her furniture, etc all the same day. In a quandary. Hope someone else has encountered this situation. I would surely like any input available.
Help with a move - how to minimize trauma
My mom has been living in an assisted living apartment, but since my dad passed away a year and a half ago, she has slowly slipped into needed more assistance and than they can and are willing to give. We have found a 'memory' unit in a nearby town and are making arrangments for her to move there rather than to a nursing home situation. It seems like a much better and caring community given her current situation. She is wheel chair bound but mostly due to her unwillingness to continue any exercise program or use her walker. Other than mild to medium dementia she doesn't have other physical problems. But her dementia keeps her pretty uncooperative, manipulative, and depressed, crying lots. She doesn't want to move, but complains of being lonely all the time, even when visitors are present. My question is how to arrange for her move. When to tell her, and how to physically arrange for the move. Anything is going to cause her more anxiety, but we'd like to minimize it if at all possible. The bad thing is that we need to move much of her furniture, etc all the same day. In a quandary. Hope someone else has encountered this situation. I would surely like any input available.
Well, all I can tell you is what DOESN'T work. Telling her at the last moment doesn't work. Hauling her off to a distant town or city doesn't work, unless it's a town or city in which relatives live who will visit her. Not getting her doctors on board about the move doesn't work. And moving her and her house all in one day doesn't work. I know, because I and my brothers did those things with our mother. Within two weeks at the nursing home she had starved herself to death (she already had very terminal cancer). I'm convinced that had we done things differently she would not have gone as quickly as she did, though she was in her fourth year after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
If I were to do all that all over again, I'd start with the doctors, all of them. I would try to get them all to agree that transfer to the chosen nursing home is necessary and desirable not only for her physical health but for her quality of life as well. I would have each of the doctors talk with her directly to express their position. I would have talked with mom repeatedly, over and over again, about the benefits of going to the home, using whatever pressure points and worries she's sensitive to.
And then I'd make the actual transfer day a family holiday so that as many relatives as possible (including grandchildren) accompanied her in a car cavalcade to the new home, where everyone would visit for the rest of the day and run errands getting her whatever she thought would be necessary for her comfort and happiness.
As for the contents of her apartment/house, you'll really have more than enough to do just to get her ensconced in the nursing home as happily as possible in one day. If you hire professional movers you'll certainly be able to empty her home in one day with them. If it's also a question of what to get rid of and how, there are many estate sale professionals who will organize a good sale and frequently sell much more than you think possible. That's the one thing we did right. We found the estate sale professional in the yellow pages.
Well, all I can tell you is what DOESN'T work. Telling her at the last moment doesn't work. Hauling her off to a distant town or city doesn't work, unless it's a town or city in which relatives live who will visit her. Not getting her doctors on board about the move doesn't work. And moving her and her house all in one day doesn't work. I know, because I and my brothers did those things with our mother. Within two weeks at the nursing home she had starved herself to death (she already had very terminal cancer). I'm convinced that had we done things differently she would not have gone as quickly as she did, though she was in her fourth year after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
If I were to do all that all over again, I'd start with the doctors, all of them. I would try to get them all to agree that transfer to the chosen nursing home is necessary and desirable not only for her physical health but for her quality of life as well. I would have each of the doctors talk with her directly to express their position. I would have talked with mom repeatedly, over and over again, about the benefits of going to the home, using whatever pressure points and worries she's sensitive to.
And then I'd make the actual transfer day a family holiday so that as many relatives as possible (including grandchildren) accompanied her in a car cavalcade to the new home, where everyone would visit for the rest of the day and run errands getting her whatever she thought would be necessary for her comfort and happiness.
As for the contents of her apartment/house, you'll really have more than enough to do just to get her ensconced in the nursing home as happily as possible in one day. If you hire professional movers you'll certainly be able to empty her home in one day with them. If it's also a question of what to get rid of and how, there are many estate sale professionals who will organize a good sale and frequently sell much more than you think possible. That's the one thing we did right. We found the estate sale professional in the yellow pages.