My MIL is 90 yrs old and is now living in a residential care home - her choice - and has been doing so since Spring 2018. She has been diagnosed, following a CT scan (for another problem) with ‘small vessel disease’ but that diagnosis has gone unnoticed by her. She has settled reasonably well but has many complaints about various things which she doesn’t want us to do anything about ‘because the staff won’t like me if you complain’. (If she was my mother I would have overruled her wishes, but she’s not, so I have to live with that).
When my FIL was alive, and living with dementia on the dementia floor in the same care home, she visited him religiously at 2pm every day, and apologised to staff if she was late(!), and wouldn’t listen to our suggestions to visit at other times when FIL was less confused, eg in the mornings ‘because that didn’t suit her’.
Within the family we had a discussion when she moved into the care home (which is only a mile away from home) about how often and when we would visit her. We continued visiting her as we had done when she lived in her own flat - ie when we had a reason to do so, or if we were nearby shopping and had some time.
The other day she said to my husband / her son that she had ‘looked it up’ ( everything is written down because her short term memory is appalling) and worked out that she hadn’t been ‘taken out’ by us for 5 months prior to having Sunday lunch with us a fortnight ago.
She obviously expects to be ‘taken out’ a lot. We are retired but lead busy lives, and much as though we love her she is sometimes very hard to deal with. I have had a difficult relationship with her recently and decided to ‘back off’ from contact with her to try to diffuse the situation and preserve my sanity. We now have a ‘cool’ relationship.
I asked my husband what he felt about her comment about ‘it’s 5 months...’ and how he felt we should react to it. Typically he said that he didn’t know. What do others think? Do we let the comment go and do nothing or do we comply with her implied demand for more visits/ outings? I hasten to add that she is regularly taken to her multitude of hospital appointments by my husband and she still sees some of her non care home friends for lunch. It’s not as if she’s sitting in her care home on her own day after day.
Sorry this has been a bit of a long post!
When my FIL was alive, and living with dementia on the dementia floor in the same care home, she visited him religiously at 2pm every day, and apologised to staff if she was late(!), and wouldn’t listen to our suggestions to visit at other times when FIL was less confused, eg in the mornings ‘because that didn’t suit her’.
Within the family we had a discussion when she moved into the care home (which is only a mile away from home) about how often and when we would visit her. We continued visiting her as we had done when she lived in her own flat - ie when we had a reason to do so, or if we were nearby shopping and had some time.
The other day she said to my husband / her son that she had ‘looked it up’ ( everything is written down because her short term memory is appalling) and worked out that she hadn’t been ‘taken out’ by us for 5 months prior to having Sunday lunch with us a fortnight ago.
She obviously expects to be ‘taken out’ a lot. We are retired but lead busy lives, and much as though we love her she is sometimes very hard to deal with. I have had a difficult relationship with her recently and decided to ‘back off’ from contact with her to try to diffuse the situation and preserve my sanity. We now have a ‘cool’ relationship.
I asked my husband what he felt about her comment about ‘it’s 5 months...’ and how he felt we should react to it. Typically he said that he didn’t know. What do others think? Do we let the comment go and do nothing or do we comply with her implied demand for more visits/ outings? I hasten to add that she is regularly taken to her multitude of hospital appointments by my husband and she still sees some of her non care home friends for lunch. It’s not as if she’s sitting in her care home on her own day after day.
Sorry this has been a bit of a long post!