My Mom's husband is very verbal and probably the most conversational and animated resident there at the memory care, having completely coherent conversations. However he had undergone a personality change after his stroke and became more forgetful, angry and violent. My mother could not handle his behavior and placed him in memory care less than a mile from her house. She visits him daily.
When I've visited my Mom's husband, I've observed that the staff are not good at redirecting the residents and are remiss with the activities (and it's too bad, because he is social and loves the activities). They are simply resorting to increasing his antipsychotic medication, which I feel should be a last resort since most of them have a strong sedative effect. My mother intervened and asked them not to raise the dose, however recently he unfortunately hit another resident, which I know is unacceptable behavior but might be due to lack of redirection. (He lived at another facility for over a year with no violent behavior however that facility closed down.)
And just now when she called from the ICU and told them she was hospitalized and needed to talk with him, they would not put him on the phone because he was eating dinner, which I find strange because in my experience staff always prioritizes family contact. They hung up on her and when she tried to call back they wouldn't answer.
I have a feeling the staff is acting rude towards her because she has already brought up these issues with anyone there who will listen. Interestingly, the director is highly sympathetic with the situation and feels that her staff needs retraining, but my mother suspects this is lip service because nothing is done.
My mother knows a lot of the facilities and has already researched others, but she obviously is not in any shape to be visiting facilities right now. I am contacting some aging life care managers for her, as they were helpful when I was sorting out my father's dementia care.
It's my hope they can visit the facility and either find a better facility or help the director to address the issues, because if she passes on the ICU now (this is a distinct possibility) I am the POA so I will be managing his care and I would not be able to deal with his memory care staff's current attitude and behavior. Is there anything else I can do?
(I have 14 years' experience as a caregiver and POA for my father, who suffered from dementia, lived in a wonderful memory care unit, and who passed recently at age 95.)
Has he been checked for a UTI? Or any other medical problem that may be causing him discomfort or pain (thus him expressing it in changed behavior)? I would explore every other option before moving him. His record of combativeness may make a move more difficult (as I have read on a few other threads on this forum) since no facility really wants the risks that a violent resident brings to both staff and other residents.
I'm so sorry for your family's distressing situation right now. Also, moving your Mother's husband to an unfamiliar place may trigger further undesirable behaviors. Please consider and explore all other options first. If you think it's a problem with the facility you can contact an ombudsman to "kick it upstairs".
Also I've seen actual understaffing everywhere. In the last year of my Dad's life we went to 5 different hospitals and 3 different SNFs in the San Diego area. He was not always a docile patient either, removing his IVs and urinary catheters.
But some facilities and SNFs figure out creative ways of dealing with people with dementia via all sorts of social engineering strategies, without medication. It is uncommon though. I always thought, it would make everyone's life so much easier if they were just trained! So sad for everyone involved!
A couple weeks ago my Mom's husband went to the ER with chest pains that turned out to be tiny gallstones that passed on their own. He was tested for a multitude of other possible sources of his pain over the 5 days of his hospital stay, including a urinalysis, and nothing came out positive. BTW his hospital stay was prolonged due to...you guessed it...understaffing on weekends and at discharge.
I think suggesting an ombudsman is a great idea. I did that once before and I did notice that the facility situation did greatly improve. But it took years as they systematically routed out bad staff. I was thinking, we don't have years here because it's taking a toll on my Mom's health, but at least it would help out current and future residents and their families!