hi everyone,
Just stumbled across this forum and so glad I did. It’s a fab resource for all those affected by this awful disease.
Looking for some help/advice please.
Mum is in a care home and has been since March. She took a while to settle which is only to be expected and got through it. All appeared to be fine for a while. However, she is now unhappy, frustrated and bored and wishing she could be somewhere else. She likes the care home and gets on with the staff but not the other residents in her unit. Whilst she has advanced dementia and struggles with communication, she is very aware of her surroundings and alert. She is in a unit with others who all have dementia. All have lost their ability to communicate or inter act with each other or the staff. They sit around in the unit and stare, a familiar sight in care homes I know. There are activities laid on but they choose not to participate. Mum did join in but of late she doesn’t seem interested. I think if she had others around her who joined in she would be happy to join in. She has lost the art of making conversation but does respond as best she can if she is spoken too. Because she has nothing to keep her occupied she watches what goes on around her and takes it all in. She can describe each person, ‘he doesn’t speak’ she doesn’t do anything, sits there all day, ‘she really is not very nice.’ What she says is correct but she doesn’t understand they are like they are because they all have dementia of one type or another as does she which she doesn’t recognise or acknowledge. There are other units within the home with a mixture of those suffering from early onset dementia to advanced dementia. They are free to mingle but it is difficult to walk into another unit and mix when you have lost your social skills and the art of conversation. The situation is making Mum very unhappy and she has become withdrawn and is ‘wishing she could be somewhere else or ‘come home with me.’ It breaks my heart to hear her say that and feel guilty when I have to leave her at the end of my visit.
I’m struggling with the whole dementia journey at the moment and still feel guilty for placing Mum into the home even though I know deep down it was in her best interests as she needed 24 hr care.
Any advice on how to deal with Mum and approach the staff at the care home would be really appreciated.
Thanks for reading x
Just stumbled across this forum and so glad I did. It’s a fab resource for all those affected by this awful disease.
Looking for some help/advice please.
Mum is in a care home and has been since March. She took a while to settle which is only to be expected and got through it. All appeared to be fine for a while. However, she is now unhappy, frustrated and bored and wishing she could be somewhere else. She likes the care home and gets on with the staff but not the other residents in her unit. Whilst she has advanced dementia and struggles with communication, she is very aware of her surroundings and alert. She is in a unit with others who all have dementia. All have lost their ability to communicate or inter act with each other or the staff. They sit around in the unit and stare, a familiar sight in care homes I know. There are activities laid on but they choose not to participate. Mum did join in but of late she doesn’t seem interested. I think if she had others around her who joined in she would be happy to join in. She has lost the art of making conversation but does respond as best she can if she is spoken too. Because she has nothing to keep her occupied she watches what goes on around her and takes it all in. She can describe each person, ‘he doesn’t speak’ she doesn’t do anything, sits there all day, ‘she really is not very nice.’ What she says is correct but she doesn’t understand they are like they are because they all have dementia of one type or another as does she which she doesn’t recognise or acknowledge. There are other units within the home with a mixture of those suffering from early onset dementia to advanced dementia. They are free to mingle but it is difficult to walk into another unit and mix when you have lost your social skills and the art of conversation. The situation is making Mum very unhappy and she has become withdrawn and is ‘wishing she could be somewhere else or ‘come home with me.’ It breaks my heart to hear her say that and feel guilty when I have to leave her at the end of my visit.
I’m struggling with the whole dementia journey at the moment and still feel guilty for placing Mum into the home even though I know deep down it was in her best interests as she needed 24 hr care.
Any advice on how to deal with Mum and approach the staff at the care home would be really appreciated.
Thanks for reading x