Moving to full time care

[sunlover]

Hubby will be moving into full time care soon.I know it's for the best. I would like to do it gently( more for me!)
Doing a few days and gradually increasing.Family would like this as well.Friends have said best to take him and leave him for a few weeks to settle in before I visit. Would love to hear your views.

 

[Kevinl]

I guess it depends on how much capacity he has. My wife went into care and has never asked to come home as she didn't have the ability too understand where she was or who I am so it never occurred to her or she never remembered she had a home to want to go back to.
We do have residents who ask to go home and either get upset or angry when their visitors leave, but only a couple and I feel particularly sorry for them when they either start to cry and say they wish they were dead or they go round kicking the doors, knocking things over and hitting anyone who gets close enough.
So as I say it all depends on the capacity he has, my wife neither knows who I am or cares if I'm there or not, all she does know is that I am associate with food as I go every day at one of the meal times and she likes food so she's always happy to see me.
The general advise is to give someone time to settle in before you visit but that really only applies to people who still have capacity.
K

 

[Baker17]

Hubby will be moving into full time care soon.I know it's for the best. I would like to do it gently( more for me!)
Doing a few days and gradually increasing.Family would like this as well.Friends have said best to take him and leave him for a few weeks to settle in before I visit. Would love to hear your views.

My husband moved in full time last year, but he was in the place where he had gone for respite beforehand so I just did a little love lie and said it was the same again did did take him a while and I visited once a week for about four months, it was hard to just do that but I felt it was best, I now visit 2 to 3 times a week and also have breakfast, lunch or tea with him, we have it in the main dining room with all the others and it’s lovely, so is the food, so it’s something I would definitely recommend. He has a lot less capacity now but has a friend and they seem happy chatting a way and there are lots of activities, not just games, going out for coffee visits to interesting places which keep him busy and I also join in with some of these as well, hope all goes well for you and your husband xx

 

[Sirena]

Is there a care home which will take him part time? I would have thought you would have to pay full time for the room, although of course that wouldn't stop you only using it part time.

It depends on the individual, but change is often quite difficult for a person with dementia. I would have thought (and it was the case for my mother) that moving in full time would be the better option - to get the 'change' over in one go. She found it initially confusing but settled within a fortnight, and made friends with carers and residents quite quickly. If she had been going back and forth I think she would have found it more unsettling.

Some care homes advise relatives not to visit for a couple of weeks to let the PWD settle in. My mother's care home left it to me what I did, I visited three times the first week then left it for a week. She has been there since February and loves it there and clearly thinks of it as her home. She is late mid-stage.