Number 5
Not allowing for an adjustment period or over-reacting when your loved one is new.
Moving into assisted living or a board & care is hard. There is no getting around it. It’s very stressful, and it’s very frightening. Effectively you are moving from a place where you had your own schedule and your own way of doing things, to a place that has established routines and seems very regimented. For example, meals are at very specific times, and a new resident’s appetite is often conditioned to a different schedule. Then there is the privacy factor. Strangers have a key to their room, and seem to come and go at will. Also resident are required to sign in an out of the building, and people keep checking up on them and pressuring them to attend activities and functions. Often older folk have been living alone for years prior to moving into an assisted living. The change is upsetting, to say the least. As you would expect, there is an adjustment period to endure.
After more than a decade in this business, I have discovered a pattern. I call it the 90-day rule. If you can get your parent to tough it out, you will see a miraculous change in them, and I assure you it never takes more than 90-days. At some point in the first 90 days of tenancy, the new resident makes a subconscious transition. You will know that the adjustment has been a success when one day when you call ahead to tell mom or dad that you are coming to take them out and they say to you “Oh no dear, that won’t work, we have (fill in the blank) at that time.” When you have that conversation, the war is over. There may be some minor skirmishes after that, but the bottom line, that this is where they live now, will not be endangered.
What has happened is that the positives have outweighed the perceived negatives. Your parents have started getting used to having their bed made every morning, fresh linins every week, having someone come in every week to clean their bathroom and vacuum their carpet. They realize that they like waking up and having breakfast served to them in a restaurant setting. For that matter, they like that they no longer have to buy groceries, or prepare meals, or wash a single dish. They are served lunch and dinner much the same way as breakfast, and between the two they can do whatever they like – watch TV, take a nap, etc. They have probably formed some nice acquaintances with people of their own generation, with whom they can have a normal conversation. Their laundry gets done and returned folded and on hangers. Then there’s the transportation to doctors, banks, drug stores, restaurants; and on top of that, all the activities provided by the “cruise” director (activity director). How’s that sound? And we haven’t even mentioned the extras! These are just the ‘basic’ services. If your parent needs it, there is help available for showering and bathing, and there is escort services for those that are slow or use wheel chairs.
Consider, people’s strong reluctance to move to assisted living is related to their preconceived ideas. They lump board & care, nursing homes, assisted living all together in their mind as an institution. As a place they are being sent to die. It is the beginning of the end of life. Everything that they heard tells them that people don’t come back from “those” places. Consequently, neither are they ever returning to their home, nor by association they are ever returning to health, to normalcy.
In beginning, everything that they see and hear reinforces that opinion. For example when you start touring places for them, you are finding pros and cons with each community that you look at. Eventually you make a decision based on your best analysis. Thinking that your parent will appreciate your keen observation and deductive skills you take them to see your top picks, only to be disappointed when they find nothing but fault with them, and flatly refuse to even consider moving there for even a moment.
That’s not your parent, because he/she doesn’t even wait to see the places before finding fault and refusing to consider them? Why am I not surprised? That’s what I’ve been saying, for the most part, parents do not under any circumstances, want to go to assisted living. So what can you do? You see how much they are declining. You observe that they are unable to manage their home, they have lost most of their friends, they are isolated, they are eating poorly, and they are wearing thread bare or dirty clothes. Because of declining health and loss of mobility, they are demanding more and more attention from you. In some case they don’t need to demand it because you see what is going on and are stepping in to help. But the price you are paying is growing. Your personal life, your work, and your family are all suffering. Regardless of how much you bring this to their attention, they are adamantly refusing to even try assisted living. For most adult children, like yourself, you end up having to wait until something catastrophic happens and they end up in the hospital. At least then, with them flat on their back and the doctor telling them that its not safe for them to live alone, can you hope to crowbar them into a board & care or assisted living community.
So lets say you finally get them into a place. The battle is not over. Just like in car sales there is the front end of the sale and the back end? Now that you have them in a safe place, they are going to raise holy hell. They will complain mercilessly, they will play every ‘guilt’ card in the deck. This is the back-end of the figurative deal. They will demand one of three things. That you take them back to their home, that you take them back to YOUR home, that you find them a new place, because the one you picked is terrible.
Don’t do it. Don’t give in. Remember, you did your homework and you chose this place very carefully. You were right. Don’t let their exaggerations make you doubt your choice. Chances are better than 99% that the place you chose is perfectly fine. You need to just ride it out. 90 days seems like a long time, but you have to get through it. If you have any doubts or concerns that their complaints may be valid go to management or department head. Don’t be adversarial, just do it in a calm, neutral manner. The management will appreciate you giving them the benefit of the doubt and work doubly hard to address your concerns. This brings me to the next point in our list.
6. Make nice with the staff
Sounds simple? It is. But it’s also very important in the long run. Your parent is, hopefully, going to spend the rest of their lives there. These people are going to be the ones you count on to provide care to your loved one.
If you found this article interesting, I will be posting many more in the next few weeks. To make sure you don’t miss them, wordpress has a subscription link on the right hand side of this page. Click on “Subscribe to Caregiver Relief by Email”. Don’t worry, you can unsubscribe at any time, and wordpress will not share or sell your information to anyone.
