How often to visit care home?

Homerose

Registered User
Dec 8, 2014
12
0
Hi can I ask how often people visit their loved one in a care home? I'm really struggling with this.
My mum is not yet 60 but her dementia is quite advanced. She has been in a care home for nearly 3 months. She no longer recognizes me, her only child. I pay her former home care to visit twice a week, we are her only two regular visitors. Her husband for a number of reasons chooses not to visit and hasn’t done since she moved there.
Before mum went into the carehome I visited her and her husband at least 3 times a week and had reduced my hours at work so we could spend more time together and I could help out on a practical level.

The care home she's in is about 25 miles away and depending on traffic takes about 40-60 mins each way. Since she's been at there I have been keeping up my x3 a week visits but finding them harder and harder. Mum barely acknowledges my presence, most of the time she talks to me in the same way she talks to the carers. Is she does speak to me she will say ' I haven't seen Rosie in a while', if I try to explain I am Rosie she will get annoyed with me and say 'no you are not, you're not my Rosie'. When I visited Sunday and I said 'hi mum it's Rosie' all I got was "oh god not again". I brought my dog in with me and I asked mum if she wanted to say hello to the dog she said "not particularly". Over the past couple of years I've had all kind of comments said to me by mum, often quite upsetting. I've stayed with her for weeks at a time when her husband was in hospital, I've reduced my hours and therefore suffered financially and I've been on antidepressants nearly two year trying to cope with Mum's dementia. I'm just finding this visiting at the care home so hard. Two hours driving to sit with my mum for an hour ignoring me. I try to talk to her and get her to engage in activities but she's no longer interested. If I don't visit as often I feel like I have abandoned her.
 
Last edited:

CollegeGirl

Registered User
Jan 19, 2011
9,525
0
North East England
Hello, Homerose, and welcome. I'm sorry your visits are so upsetting. I think you should reduce them to, say, just once a week, at least for a little while, to give yourself some much needed breathing space.

Are you happy with the care she is receiving? If so, then you know she is safe, warm and looked after, and these are important things. There's nothing to stop you telephoning the home in between visits, to get updates on your mum, to reassure yourself that all is well.

Something I've thought of - perhaps while you reduce your visits, you could send your mum a weekly postcard, or short note on a pretty notelet, that either she could read, if this is still possible for her to do, or that the carers could read to her. She could carry it round and you may find she reads it or has it read to her many times in the week, and it might comfort her to know that Rosie hasn't forgotten her, and that Rosie will be visiting in a few days' time?

You need to look after yourself and your own mental health is very important. You certainly haven't abandoned her; you obviously care a great deal.

xx
 

Chemmy

Registered User
Nov 7, 2011
7,589
0
Yorkshire
Perhaps think of it this way?

There are 24 x 7 = 168 hours in a week.

If someone visited for two hours a day every day, that would only add up to fourteen hours, so even then your mum would still be spending over 90% of her time without any family there. That is the reality of moving into residential care and the staff and other residents should, in time, become her extended family.

So cutting your visits in the first instance down to once a week from the three times you do now isn't actually going to make that much difference in the overall scheme of things.

You still need to go, for sure, to see that her care is satisfactory, but I wouldn't get too hung up on the frequency or length of the visits if neither of you are getting much out of them.
 

Homerose

Registered User
Dec 8, 2014
12
0
Thank you

Hello, Homerose, and welcome. I'm sorry your visits are so upsetting. I think you should reduce them to, say, just once a week, at least for a little while, to give yourself some much needed breathing space.

Are you happy with the care she is receiving? If so, then you know she is safe, warm and looked after, and these are important things. There's nothing to stop you telephoning the home in between visits, to get updates on your mum, to reassure yourself that all is well.

Something I've thought of - perhaps while you reduce your visits, you could send your mum a weekly postcard, or short note on a pretty notelet, that either she could read, if this is still possible for her to do, or that the carers could read to her. She could carry it round and you may find she reads it or has it read to her many times in the week, and it might comfort her to know that Rosie hasn't forgotten her, and that Rosie will be visiting in a few days' time?

You need to look after yourself and your own mental health is very important. You certainly haven't abandoned her; you obviously care a great deal.

xx

Thank you. I was sending postcards (via an app that sends photos directly) but it seemed she had little interest in them, she can no longer read and doesn't recognise pictures anymore. However I think you are right, I will continue to do so, if only to make myself feel a bit better.
 

Homerose

Registered User
Dec 8, 2014
12
0
Perhaps think of it this way?

There are 24 x 7 = 168 hours in a week.

If someone visited for two hours a day every day, that would only add up to fourteen hours, so even then your mum would still be spending over 90% of her time without any family there. That is the reality of moving into residential care and the staff and other residents should, in time, become her extended family.

So cutting your visits in the first instance down to once a week from the three times you do now isn't actually going to make that much difference in the overall scheme of things.

You still need to go, for sure, to see that her care is satisfactory, but I wouldn't get too hung up on the frequency or length of the visits if neither of you are getting much out of them.

That's a really helpful way of looking T it - thank you
 

Amy in the US

Registered User
Feb 28, 2015
4,616
0
USA
Hello, Homerose, and I am sorry to hear you are struggling with this situation. I think many of us with a PWD (person with dementia) in a care home, struggle to find a balance. I know people who never visit and people who visit for eight to ten hours a day, every day. I imagine most of us are in the middle somewhere!

I agree with others that you could try cutting down on your visits and see what happens. You might have regular phone calls to the staff, to get information about how your mother is doing. I find that reassuring, when I don't visit (I am also an only child and my husband and I are the only visitors for my mother), to get some information and an objective perspective on how she is doing.

I don't want to be offensive, so please take this in the spirit in which it's offered. You say that it's physically and emotionally exhausting for you to visit. The drive can take a lot of time and energy, and then there is the time spent with your mother, which isn't pleasant for you. You have made financial and personal sacrifices to spend time with your mother. It's not rewarding for you to visit. When you don't visit three times a week, you feel you are abandoning your mother.

If I've got that correct, then my observation would be that you've set awfully high expectations for yourself. My question would be: given what you've told us, why do you continue the current pattern of visiting your mother? Do you feel she gains something positive from the visits, or are you visiting only so that you don't feel you have abandoned her?

I would point out that all the care you gave before your mother moved into a care home, doesn't sound like a daughter who abandoned her mother. Making sure she is in a care home where she is safe and receiving appropriate care, doesn't sound like she's been abandoned. Presumably there is staff on duty 24/7, so that she is never in the building without supervision, as well as other residents. So she is not alone, correct?

I think it's hard to reconcile our brains (what we know) and our hearts (our emotions and what we feel) sometimes, and dementia makes it much harder.

I think you could give yourself a two week holiday (or longer or shorter, as you like) from visiting your mother, but would suggest you do your best to hold the Guilt Monster at bay during those two weeks. You could phone the care home at least as often as you would visit, and get updates on your mother. You could then spend the time you would have spent visiting, on yourself: sleeping, working, seeing friends, doing something you enjoy, running errands, watching television, reading a book, going to the cinema, cooking a meal, eating a meal out, cleaning the kitchen, or doing nothing at all, but without expectation.

That might give you a little break and enough distance to have some better perspective on what sort of a visiting schedule would be best for your mother AND for you.

I will now say what everyone says to me, which is very easy to repeat but very difficult to actually do: please try to be kind to yourself. You have not abandoned your mother, you are not a bad person, you have made sure she has good care, you are not at fault. The disease is at fault, not you.

Very best wishes and hope you can find a way forward.
 

Homerose

Registered User
Dec 8, 2014
12
0
Hello, Homerose, and I am sorry to hear you are struggling with this situation. I think many of us with a PWD (person with dementia) in a care home, struggle to find a balance. I know people who never visit and people who visit for eight to ten hours a day, every day. I imagine most of us are in the middle somewhere!

I agree with others that you could try cutting down on your visits and see what happens. You might have regular phone calls to the staff, to get information about how your mother is doing. I find that reassuring, when I don't visit (I am also an only child and my husband and I are the only visitors for my mother), to get some information and an objective perspective on how she is doing.

I don't want to be offensive, so please take this in the spirit in which it's offered. You say that it's physically and emotionally exhausting for you to visit. The drive can take a lot of time and energy, and then there is the time spent with your mother, which isn't pleasant for you. You have made financial and personal sacrifices to spend time with your mother. It's not rewarding for you to visit. When you don't visit three times a week, you feel you are abandoning your mother.

If I've got that correct, then my observation would be that you've set awfully high expectations for yourself. My question would be: given what you've told us, why do you continue the current pattern of visiting your mother? Do you feel she gains something positive from the visits, or are you visiting only so that you don't feel you have abandoned her?

I would point out that all the care you gave before your mother moved into a care home, doesn't sound like a daughter who abandoned her mother. Making sure she is in a care home where she is safe and receiving appropriate care, doesn't sound like she's been abandoned. Presumably there is staff on duty 24/7, so that she is never in the building without supervision, as well as other residents. So she is not alone, correct?

I think it's hard to reconcile our brains (what we know) and our hearts (our emotions and what we feel) sometimes, and dementia makes it much harder.

I think you could give yourself a two week holiday (or longer or shorter, as you like) from visiting your mother, but would suggest you do your best to hold the Guilt Monster at bay during those two weeks. You could phone the care home at least as often as you would visit, and get updates on your mother. You could then spend the time you would have spent visiting, on yourself: sleeping, working, seeing friends, doing something you enjoy, running errands, watching television, reading a book, going to the cinema, cooking a meal, eating a meal out, cleaning the kitchen, or doing nothing at all, but without expectation.

That might give you a little break and enough distance to have some better perspective on what sort of a visiting schedule would be best for your mother AND for you.

I will now say what everyone says to me, which is very easy to repeat but very difficult to actually do: please try to be kind to yourself. You have not abandoned your mother, you are not a bad person, you have made sure she has good care, you are not at fault. The disease is at fault, not you.

Very best wishes and hope you can find a way forward.

Thank you. This forum is so supportive. I visit because I feel I ought to and in the hope that it'll be a day that I get something out of her that can pass as positive. I really struggle with guilt as I know most do, but find the rational voices in this forum make me feel a lot better
 

Mannie

Registered User
Mar 13, 2014
116
0
Bracknell area
Hello, Homerose, and I am sorry to hear you are struggling with this situation. I think many of us with a PWD (person with dementia) in a care home, struggle to find a balance. I know people who never visit and people who visit for eight to ten hours a day, every day. I imagine most of us are in the middle somewhere!

I agree with others that you could try cutting down on your visits and see what happens. You might have regular phone calls to the staff, to get information about how your mother is doing. I find that reassuring, when I don't visit (I am also an only child and my husband and I are the only visitors for my mother), to get some information and an objective perspective on how she is doing.

I don't want to be offensive, so please take this in the spirit in which it's offered. You say that it's physically and emotionally exhausting for you to visit. The drive can take a lot of time and energy, and then there is the time spent with your mother, which isn't pleasant for you. You have made financial and personal sacrifices to spend time with your mother. It's not rewarding for you to visit. When you don't visit three times a week, you feel you are abandoning your mother.

If I've got that correct, then my observation would be that you've set awfully high expectations for yourself. My question would be: given what you've told us, why do you continue the current pattern of visiting your mother? Do you feel she gains something positive from the visits, or are you visiting only so that you don't feel you have abandoned her?

I would point out that all the care you gave before your mother moved into a care home, doesn't sound like a daughter who abandoned her mother. Making sure she is in a care home where she is safe and receiving appropriate care, doesn't sound like she's been abandoned. Presumably there is staff on duty 24/7, so that she is never in the building without supervision, as well as other residents. So she is not alone, correct?

I think it's hard to reconcile our brains (what we know) and our hearts (our emotions and what we feel) sometimes, and dementia makes it much harder.

I think you could give yourself a two week holiday (or longer or shorter, as you like) from visiting your mother, but would suggest you do your best to hold the Guilt Monster at bay during those two weeks. You could phone the care home at least as often as you would visit, and get updates on your mother. You could then spend the time you would have spent visiting, on yourself: sleeping, working, seeing friends, doing something you enjoy, running errands, watching television, reading a book, going to the cinema, cooking a meal, eating a meal out, cleaning the kitchen, or doing nothing at all, but without expectation.

That might give you a little break and enough distance to have some better perspective on what sort of a visiting schedule would be best for your mother AND for you.

I will now say what everyone says to me, which is very easy to repeat but very difficult to actually do: please try to be kind to yourself. You have not abandoned your mother, you are not a bad person, you have made sure she has good care, you are not at fault. The disease is at fault, not you.

Very best wishes and hope you can find a way forward.

Your post helped me too, thanks .....
 

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