The Care Home my mum is in has just started limited visits in the garden. I went to see her with my sister last week and it was brilliant. She's been away from us now for about 10 weeks. Her face lit up when she saw us. We plan to see her once a week and combine this with FaceTime. Care homes seem to be opening up if they have gardens.That's great @Juliematch, so glad your dad remembered you. I've just written to the manager of mum's care home to see what the latest is about potential visits.
Hi @Mydarlingdaughter . My mum's care-home has been arranging visits in their small outdoor area for a couple of weeks now. I have agonized over it but have decided against going.
My mum has vascular dementia and is extremely easily distressed (when she will literally scream - sometimes for ages - and it's very hard to calm her once she has started). "Normal" visits were always pretty hit and miss. If I were to try a visit where mum had to be wheeled outside, and I had to be 2 metres away, with a face mask, unable to hold her hand or comfort her if she became distressed, it would be almost bound to trigger a bad case of the heebie-jeebies. It would all be too unfamiliar and mum just wouldn't understand. Also, it would be almost impossible to communicate. Personally, I think this type of visit, for someone like my mum, would be worse than no visit at all.
You have described the situation very accurately. My Mum doesnt scream but she can start to say "I wish I was dead" over and over, again, in a sort of dead voice, she has no short term memory and can get very distressed. If I had to ask someone to drive me 25 miles (I know its not that far) and no idea how Mum would respond to being wheeled out to an unfamiliar area, in order to just be able to see her from a distance. I will talk to the care staff again about it but I am not erring on the side of going.
As soon as I heard about the possibility of visits I felt "expectations, guilty feelings".I checked with mum's care home yesterday and one member of staff was saying no meetings yet. Today another said a garden gate meeting might be possible. I'd love to see that mum is OK, but not at all sure how it would work. I'm deaf and I can only hear mum if I'm right up next to her, two metres away no chance. I could get my husband, who describes himself as my 'hearing husband' along the line of a hearing dog, to come too. However I doubt we could organise a time that would suit them and us. I'm also worried that mum would get distressed, which wouldn't help either of us. Decisions, decisions.
I had a letter today to from Monday outside visits are going ahead. I have spoken to the managers manager about issues that may arise with social distancing as my husband has always greeted me with a hug and would be distressed if he stopped from doing this, also that he might be cold because he’s always cold. She said if things don’t work they are happy to look at the issues and do another risk assessment to help with my visits. So hopefully a solution will be found but I’ll try anyway. I’ve booked my visit for Tuesday so here goes.The Manager at Mum's CH is saying no visitors until probably end of July!