How have you helped your LO transition successfully to assisted living?

What a wonderful question! I hope many posters will respond to this inquiry because many people who come to this forum seeking help with a similar situation can benefit from the responses.

My mom is deceased and I went through 15 years of caregiving in my home so I understand how exhausted you are.

My mother is 94+ and living in Assisted Living since 2014 and now in Memory Care since 2019 after her dementia went downhill and she became wheelchair bound. There are pros and cons to managed care, naturally, as there is with everything in life.

In my opinion, there are many more pros than cons. I feel that my mother's life has been prolonged BECAUSE of managed care and the fact that she gets a high quality of care 24/7 by teams of caregivers over there. Meds given out on a strict schedule, a nurse to watch her and monitor symptoms *pneumonia was caught 2x very quickly*, all sorts of things too numerous to mention, really. Also, she gets interaction with other adults over there. I can't say enough about that. At home, who does the elder get to talk with and socialize with aside from the child? Who do they butt heads with and shoot the breeze with? In mom's place, there are 20+ others she can hang out with, complain with, confabulate with, argue with, you name it. They watch movies, eat 3 meals a day, snacks, do puzzles, play beach ball games, do crafts, go sit out in the garden, etc. The mini bus even takes them on outings to the mountains (we live in Colorado) for scenic drives. Mom has a beautiful room (private) which she thinks is a 'hotel' and can keep her door locked so no other resident can wander in. *This is an important thing to look for in a Memory Care AL: That the resident can LOCK HER DOOR so no residents can wander in!*

Mom is at the advanced stage of dementia now, incontinent, and prone to falling (72x so far). The down side of things is that she 'wants to go home' all the time, saying she's going to ride the bus to see 'papa on Long Island (in NY)'. Or she'll call me saying she needs to get to my house, then gets agitated when I tell her she's staying in her 'hotel room' tonight. Truth is, however, she'll be confused and agitated no matter where she's living. It's the broken brain that's the problem; not where she's living.

She complains about the food chronically too. She's pushing 200 lbs so I seriously doubt the food is all that bad. I'm just giving you the cons as well as the pros. She also complains about a couple of the other women being annoying and 'stupid' and 'deaf' (meanwhile, she's about 75% deaf herself). But the interaction with others, both good & bad, gives her something to DO, which I feel is better than nothing to do.

I think AL and MC have been a blessing for my mother and for myself. I would never be able to care for her in her condition and at her level of dementia these days. When her $$$ for private pay runs out in 2022, if she's still alive, I'll apply for Medicaid and have her placed in Skilled Nursing where she went for rehab in 2019; it's a nice place where we had a good experience with rehab. I realize my own limitations and what I can and cannot do with regard to caring for elders at home.

As far as 'upsetting and stressing out' your mother goes, it can be a bit tricky at first with moving her into a Memory Care AL. Just get the room set up with all of her belongings from home to make it comfy. In my experience, the 'right thing' was moving both of my folks into AL as soon as the need arose. Of course there will be complaining and an adjustment period, which is to be expected. But as long as you feel she's getting good care, and you have open communication with the nurses and staff at the facility, you should be good to go.

Good luck!

My mother is in MC. The move wasn’t easy, but it was NECESSARY.

Because they are our parents, we want to please them.

But, there comes a point when what people want doesn’t mean we don’t have to do what is necessary.

For us, what was necessary was both my mother’s safety, AND my mental and physical health.

Best wishes to you.

I agree with others that this question needs more input from those caregivers who have gone through putting a parent in memory care or nursing home. I am grappling with putting my kind, gentle Mom in memory care because it is stressing my marriage and we are so tired because she wanders throughout the night. Though my husband and I are both retired, we can’t go anywhere or do much of anything together because Mom always needs someone around. We do have a caregiver coming in once a week and wish it could be more. I feel so selfish and cry at-the-drop-of-a-hat even thinking of putting my Mom in MC. She always said she never wanted to live with any of her married children.

This is the hardest moment in elder caregiving. I went through it with both parents at the same time. In my case it was a medical crisis that enabled me to move them into assisted living. I had all the issues, dementia, no mobility and only living child three states away.

I don’t know what level , if any, of your moms reasoning abilities. For my folks I had to fib a bit. For mom, this is just until you get better, for dad with advancing dementia, mom needs you to stay with her and help her out. It was still the most difficult time of my caregiving experience but there comes a point where it’s not what elders want but what they need to be safe. And as others have said, it’s about your health and sanity also. You can’t let yourself go down with the ship.

A couple years earlier I was able to get mom to visit a nice assisted living near her home. She grimly went through a short tour and demanded I get her out of there. She’s just fine. She went into diabetic shock as we were leaving. Nurses came out and helped us survive that.

So about a year later after a horrible fall, 3 days in the hospital, I didn’t ask or discuss moving with either parent. I had mom taken to assisted living and moved dad in a few days later.

Mom died a year later, dad was moved to memory care and he died last year. I’d moved him to a nursing home near me and was able to spend lots of time with him before covid hit. I’m currently on my way home from burying his ashes next to mom in WV.

Looking back, getting them in care was the hardest thing but also the best thing I ever did for them. They were cared for, well fed, took their meds, bathed regularly and made comfortable towards the end of their lives.

I wish you the best of luck.