My almost 78 year old mother is in an AL about 2 hours from me and I used to visit every other week. It's a great facility, and has been on lockdown since early March due to COVID precautions with no visitors even outside. Residents spend a lot of time alone as meals are delivered and activities have been cancelled. There is still a nurse and CNA and staff around so some interaction, and residents can get out and about with masks to some extent. But definitely a change in schedule and environment and causing a lot of confusion. My mom has been almost delusional since this started and especially in the afternoons "sundowning". She had been developing dementia and personality disorders, but is SO much worse. I am wondering if anyone else has this issue? She has never been pleasant, but gotten much much worse. She is rude to the staff and to me as well. She has never really made any friends there and pushed away most other relatives so it's just me. They have had to order a PRN shot of Ativan for extreme days, as earlier this week when she called the police. This is a gated and continuing care community with an excellent reputation. She has been there almost 3 years so far. She calls many times per day. I just wonder if this will reverse once I am able to visit? She has a history of temporary delusions with a trigger such as surgery. Thankfully I have full POA. Thank you!!
My mom was admitted 2 times to ER after some falls, got put on isolation twice, that’s 28 days totally alone in a room with no social interaction it was devastating on her already declining mental health.
According to a friend who has a parent in the MC where my father once stayed, the MC has reopened internally, allowing residents to leave their rooms and use the common rooms and outdoor porches again for 2 hours at a time (morning, afternoon, evening). The facility tests everyone for CV weekly and has installed UV filters on the central HVAC (each room has an independent HVAC unit). Family has been doing window visits throughout the lock down but can now also "visit" across the fenced in outdoor porches/patios where a couple wooden fence sections have been replaced with Plexiglas.
I can see in FB posts a local AL has also reopened internally as they are posting photos of residents in the day room and large outdoor patio area. I think as soon as the tests became available and the state started requiring weekly tests of everyone living or working in LTC, several LTCs started getting their residents out of their rooms for some portion of the day. The AL posted a picture of residents dining with only 2 residents per table, maintaining proper social distance and stated in answering a comment they were rotating residents so everyone gets out of their room everyday - either to the patio/porch, day room or dining room.
My sweet mother with MCI and the beginnings of dementia had become insistent she wanted to go VISIT someone somewhere. A hour or so drive around the area 1-2 times a week wasn't enough. Even though we have children in the house and her great-grandchildren visiting daily she still wanted out. Last week, we resumed her adult day care schedule and after the second day this behavior just stopped.
If testing is available, the local CV rates are reasonable and resources allow daily cleaning of common areas, I think the internal interaction between residents has little increased risk.
These are certainly difficult times for so many of us. I can only imagine how hard it is for someone with dementia when they don't remember and/or understand why things have changed so much.
My mother did not know who I was when I was her caregiver in her condo, but when she was in the memory care home she knew me. Just a few nights ago, my husband's sundowning was a heart sick time for me. It was as if he woke up from a 65 year coma. He knew nothing from all those years. Not where he was, how he got here, etc. He asked me, "How are you going to get home?" I said, "We are home." He said, in quite surprise, "Are we married?" When I said "Yes, 60 years," he got so upset with his memory loss. This went on for hours. I remained calm, held back tears and used calming statements. I do know with this disease things can change in a second and it did, but what was he going to be like during the night or in the morning, I did not know. Thankfully his sleep was fine and he is back to his Alzheimers personality, but not like the other night. For this I am so thankful. So again, I am taking each minute as a blessing and continue reminding myself, the real person I fell in love with and always will, is still in there but the brain has just ajusted him a bit.
I have learned that with this disease we can not expect anything. Be surprised, and you will be with what they will say or do. What they know, what they think. Not to get upset with them. Try to remain calm. If you think you asked for patience when raising your children you now need to ask for a whole lot more. 😱 Remember to smile even when you feel like crying. Know you are doing the very best you can for your lived one, be it parent or spouse. Take care of yourself. Even when my Mom was the most ornery to handle, my expressing my love to her seemed to get through. Even though I was not with her when she passed in her sleep, I knew she went with the warmth of my love in her heart.
So in the times we are in now, where you can't be visiting loved ones in care homes. Any words, via phone, zoom, site through a window, cards, etc. sends warmth and love. Just keep on doing it.
These have subsided but mom has declined rapidly, I think all the isolation is killing her. We have started hospice, finally hospice advocated for us to be with her as she is deteriorating so quickly.
My mother has AD, and is a memory/AL facility. No one in the family has seen her. Visiting through the window would only benefit the family, as, I am sure she couldn't see us, because she is bed-ridden. It has to be terribly confusing for the ones who can visit through a window or over a fence, though.
My father is in an IL facility. At first, I think he thought my brother and I were lying to him, about why he couldn't see Mom. He went into a depression, and would barely get out of bed or eat. I kept reminding him that we miss Mom, too, and that when her Birthday came and went, my brother brought some flowers to the facility for her.
Now their 69th Anniversary is coming up, and I'm not sure whether or not to even mention it. I contacted the facility and asked if there was any way my father, who has not been out of his room, with only caregivers visiting him, could go see her, if he wore a mask and gloves, had on sanitizer, and went straight to her room (where her room is, he wouldn't have to pass anyone else's room). Of course, he was denied, as I suspected.
My brother and I are Dad's caregivers PTL! so we are able to see him daily. Even still, he has always been a person of service, first in the military, then on the PD, and now an ambassador in the facility, so this isolation is literally killing him.
I looked up the symptoms of someone in the process of dying, and he had all but 2 of them. He is starting to hallucinate that people are visiting him, and is having extremely vivid dreams and memories. Twice left the room in his underwear, to trying to find his car, so he can go to work, which he says is the first day on the PD. None of this happened before the lock-down.
I have permission to take him downstairs to eat in a room not being used, if I close the door and sanitize the area afterward. It has made a huge difference! They are also allowed to go eat in the dining room once a week, 9 at a time, at a distance. The problem is, they are all hard of hearing and can't communication, anyway.
Others in the facility, are not getting out of bed. Ladies that used to pride themselves in getting dress up to go downstairs and eat, are not getting dressed, and not even combing their hair. Most of the men, like my father, aren't getting exercise, so they are out of breath and their legs hurt when they do leave the room, even at a short distance.
There has to be a better system of keeping our elderly safe, but helping them stay healthy mentally. This system isn't working, from my perspective.
I hope your mom gets back to normal soon!
A tea of 1:1 chamomile and sage (you can buy the bags if you prefer..2 of each per cup) is effective at calming and soothing an anxious and combative senior. And enhances sleep. Doesn't disrupt it. And 2 or 3 valerian caps an hour before sleep will ensure deep restful sleep without any side effects.
Finally as Hippocrates said about patient treatment "Care Always"..which you clearly do. Love and Sleep are the great healers of body and mind.
Mind you, she was always an avid reader, and she is a former smoker, so I can see where some of this stuff comes from. And multiple repeating patterns are characteristic of her Charles Bonnet Syndrome, so I could attribute some of it to that due to sensory deprivation. The scary thing is, when she was at home with me, she would always accept my explanation that these things were hallucinations. Now, they're very real to her.
Last week, she interrupted one of these stories to start hollering, "GET DOWN FROM THERE! GET DOWN! YOU'LL HURT YOURSELF!" so loud that I could hear it echoing down the hall. She said there was a little girl in her room and she was climbing on something, and she wanted her to stop, and she continued yelling until I told her to hang up so that I could call the "head nurse" and have them do something.
Mom will be 88 in a couple of weeks, so I know that some degree of dementia was inevitable, but this has advanced so rapidly that I can only blame the isolation. It's heartbreaking, frustrating and infuriating.
I just have to keep telling her your not alone with how your feeling? Mom has always had anxiety problems for at least 45 years, we just need to pray for a better way of life for all!
Sorry just had to vent