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Our Mother lives in an AL place and she's a night owl. She's very social and wants to keep going until at least 9:00pm. No one else at her place (or any of these places) seem to want to stay up and socialize after 6:00pm. I've thought about getting her a cat or dog, but it wouldn't be fair to the animal. I call her every night and stay on the phone with her for almost an hour to give her that "social" fix that she needs. It's really a problem because she cries practically every night. Any suggestions?

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I read some answers about anti-anxiety medication. When you have a headache you can take aspirin. If you can't sleep sometimes a sleeping pill helps. If your heart raced you take medication to slow it down. When your brain becomes anxious at a certain time (in this case in the "sundowning" time probably) a very mild sedative like Trazodone could give her peace of mind. Isn't that what you want for her? Peace of mind so she can relax and go to sleep eventually. I saw first hand what a mild sedative did for my own Father when he became anxious in the evening to the point of paranoia. It settled his brain so he could relax. It didn't make him a zombie or drug addict. A knowledgeable nurse would give it to him. Give her what she NEEDS and if there is help like that available, it's cruel to not give it to her.
MJ. Caregiver
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Why is your mother crying? Try to find out what's bothering her. Is she frightened of something, or lonely? Speak with your mother's case manager at her facility about this. Is there a common area near the nurse's office where your mother can sit, say from 6 -8pm? Or can staff check in more often between 6 and 9? You could also find out if a therapist would help, someone who could come to her room to counsel her about her feelings. Her case manager could assist with this, and Medicare pays for it, if it is needed. My mother liked to listen to calming music. Can you get a simple radio that staff can turn on softly in the evening and keep it tuned to a channel with music that she likes. Or would she want to watch (non-violent) movies on TV? If so, get her a comfortable reclining chair. Medicare may pay for it. Also, does she have a night light so that it's never pitch dark in her room? Some people don't like total darkness. Also talk to your mother's physician. There may be some natural calming medications like melatonin that will help her relax.
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RST888 - Is your mother computer literate? Can she use Facebook or similar social media? if so, she can chat with people and have her social fix anytime of the day.

Maybe she can sign up for an online class in the evening, something that interests her?

Edit - Just read that your mom has Alz., so probably she can no longer use computer.
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I’m sorry that you are struggling with this issue. According to your profile, you and your mom prefer opposite sleeping patterns.

You sound like a busy woman and certainly need your rest.

How long do you think would be a reasonable time to speak to your mother on the phone? Try to work towards that goal, otherwise you are going to wear yourself out.

Has your mom always stayed up late or is this a new behavior? Has she told you what she is afraid of during the evening hours?

Unless you have a money tree in your yard, it would be expensive to hire someone to be a companion for every evening of the week, month after month.

Has she tried a mild medication so she can relax?

My friend who lives next door to her mom has the same issue with her mom.

My friend can’t stay up late with her mom. She serves dinner to her mom, then returns to her home to spend time with her husband. She goes to bed early because she has to leave early for work.

Her mom’s doctor prescribed Trazodone. Maybe your mom’s doctor could prescribe something mild for her so she could unwind in the evening and hopefully rest well.
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Thank you for your suggestion! I’ve thought about that, too. Once I get my dogs acclimated to my mom’s dog(taking a LONG time), I’ll stay there with my dogs. Hoping that helps. She’s my mom!!! I want to always be there for her!
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I would agree with others that her doctor should prescribe an anti anxiety medication at night for her. Another thought, see if the facility can give her a night owl roommate like herself. The one my friend/patient was in were really good about placing the right personalities together. It worked well. They would watch movies together and have snacks. I agree that so many facilities are under staffed. I got a grand pad for my friend so that I could see her when I spoke with her. She did well with it until the last few weeks of her life.
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Barb is correct a geriatric consult could be of value. Crying on the phone every night should be addressed along with her inability to occupy herself in the evening.
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Bridget66 Jan 2023
Bandy, I read all of it and I know of your distrust of meds. However, a mild anxiolytic might be be helpful with the crying and a geriatric psychiatrist might have ideas on refocusing mom from being unable to occupy herself.
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Has your mother been seen by a geriatric psychiatrist to address this?
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The demons are in her head and not yours. You just enable her to continue
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RST888, I just wanted to say, God Bless you for caring and having compassion for your Mom. Some of these posters on here don't know the meaning of those words. My elderly mother died from Dementia in 2019. I still grieve her, as she was the greatest blessing of my life. She was also frightened at night. I had the staff give her a very, very small amount of anti-anxiety meds or Melatonin. The staff would also spend some time comforting her. She was such a sweet, kind and gentle lady. Other than those suggestions, I don't know what else to suggest, except to say that, hopefully, in time, she will adjust to her new surroundings. God Bless you dear for caring.
To Emma 1817, your comments are callous hurtful to others. This is not Okay! This forum is supposed to be supportive to others. You are not doing that and so, why are you on here? Your comment, it doesn't bother you because she's not your mother: Whether she's your mother or not, it's sad that you do not have compassion for "anyone" who is in her position.
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BurntCaregiver Jan 2023
@DeborahLynn

Your condescending criticism isn't okay either. Emma is right. People often criticize a person for telling an unpleasant truth. That does not make it untrue though. You state that your own mother was placed and that the staff of her facility were available to comfort her every night. You weren't dealing with her hysterics and crying every night and spending hours on the phone calming her down the way the OP has to. So there's no halo appearing above your head, and you shouldn't be judgemental about anybody else. Your mother was lucky she was placed in a facility that could offer this kind of one-on-one attention. Most of them do not. In fact, most facilities are so short staffed that a resident is lucky if someone washes them up and toilets them before bedtime. Living in a care facility can be lonely. There isn't going to be 24 hour activitity and someone staying by a resident 24/7 so they have to adapt.
This sounds unkind and maybe even harsh, but a person has to adapt. It's like with a baby. If mom and dad go running in every time the baby squawks a little bit, he will never learn how to be alone. So what will happen is he'll have no sense of autonomy and mom and dad will end up with him living in their basement at 40 and they'll have to support him until they die.
The same thing with the elderly even with dementia. I see so many people on here at their wits' end because a LO with dementia develops a 'shadowing' habit and cannot be left alone for a moment. This happens because it's allowed to. When it's not allowed, the habit doesn't form. People have to be left alone for periods of time. The OP's mother may very well have to cry herself to sleep for a few nights. After those few nights she will adapt to being alone before bedtime for a while and will be fine. Some hired companionship for a few hours a few nights a week will help too.
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ChrissyMarie and whomever else: it doesn’t “bother” me—she’s not my mom!— but the OP is obviously bothered, as she wrote, “it’s really a problem.” Sometimes a poster is looking for validation, or permission to do what they may feel unneccesarily guilty for doing…in this case, calling less often, and doin’ the good ol’ “nighty-night!” sign-off!
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BurntCaregiver Jan 2023
@Emma

Your comment was spot on and you were right. You told what is an unpleasant truth and people sometimes have a hard time when one is mentioned.
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* Get her an 'automated' cat or dog, or baby.
* Schedule a massage or foot massage (very relaxing) later in the evening.
(be sure they are certified).
* I would caution you calling nightly as it will exhaust you / wear you out and [may not] help her that much - when needing other interventions.
* Call volunteer organizations (or churches) and ask for a volunteer to call her for a five minute chat in the evenings (several people can do this).
* Consider having her medication adjusted - if she's on any; if not, see if this might help.
* Find out what she is doing after 5pm, i.e.
- drinking coffee?
- any stimulates that would keep her aware / her brain going
+ Ask her to read around 8pm (history? something boring?)
+ Ask staff to support her somehow.
+ Get her some 'calming' tea(s) - ask at a health food store

* Offer / do a visualization with her at night to help her relax. You could likely find these looking up 'relaxing visualizations' on the internet.
- Get her a CD of relaxing music and/or a meditation.

* Ask her what she is fearing. Offer reflective listening (reflect her words back to her, with comfort). "I understand you feel xxx and that must be scary." Let her know she isn't alone. "Oh, I used to feel like that too." --- See if she asks you about it and how you resolved it. If she doesn't ask, tell her how you resolved it (it doesn't matter if you did or didn't... you can share with her some of these ideas).

* Hire a caregiver for two hours in the evening to be with her / get her ready for bed; this could be someone offering a massage or gentle touch / foot rub (wouldn't necessarily need to be a certified practitioner/massage therapist).

Gena / Touch Matters
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BurntCaregiver Jan 2023
@TouchMatters

'Ask staff to support her some how'.

How? The staff has to support her somehow. How?
I worked in a nice assisted living facility for a long time. This place was high end. No one was forced to go to sleep at a certain time. They could stay up in their rooms and do what they wanted.
We did not have enough staff to sit with someone for hours on end holding their hand or calming them down or entertaining them until they fall asleep. A facility not as posh and swank as the one I worked in will have even less staff. Especially at night. That's the reality. Your suggestions aren't reality. They are not going to apply in an actual AL facility.
Best case scenario (in reality) is the OP can get some hired companionship to stay with her mother for a few hours in the evenings. Or her doctor can give her something for anxiety so she doesn't have to cry to her daughter for hours every night.
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RST888: Perhaps her physician needs to be made aware of her crying and may be able to prescribe a low dose anti anxiety medication.
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There has to be others in that AL who don't roll up the shutters that early every night. Go talk to the mgmt and find out who the other night owls might be. Maybe you can get a card game or dominos game started for a few of them shortly after suppertime. Some facilities have people who coordinate games or activities, so ask. It might be something they would be interested in starting. Especially if it keeps residents busy and happy.

Did mom have any crafting, sewing or such that she liked to do? Maybe it's time to restock those items to see if she'll get going on them again.
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This could be my mom. She has early dementia but is in excellent physical health. She calls me at 8:30 pm and says nobody is around. Before the front desk staff leave she tries to get them to stay and asks them if they want to go out dancing. Wish your mom was with mine.
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Oh, goodness me, your mother is just going to have to deal with it. You need not wrack your brain trying to come up with solutions! Just like little children, who get whiny and don’t know what to do with themselves around bedtime, you leave them to their own devices, and walk away! A good book, a TV show, whatever. Sounds as if she is playing you for a sucker. Say “nighty-night,” hang up, and she will figure it out. Some posters here seem to think that they must “baby” their elderly parents.
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ChrissyMarie Jan 2023
I am so sad for your mother! It is hard to imagine an adult daughter would treat her in such a disrespectful way. shame on you! CMM
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My folks lived in 2 different Assisted Living residences for 7 years in total. Neither facility had much going on after dinner for one reason and one reason only: there was no resident participation. What's the point of having 'bingo' or a movie going on if nobody shows up for it?

Every night after dinner (after dad died) mom would go back to her apartment, change into her nightgown, make phone calls, write cards out, and then watch tv until bed time. That's a standard thing to do for most people. Once in a while she would schmooze with her BFF at the AL, Ann, in the evenings, but not as a rule. The residents were allowed to use the library if they wanted to, but most residents were in their apartments after dinner.

According to your profile, your mom suffers from Alzheimers/dementia. This is likely the reason why she's scared of being alone at night and why you need to talk her off the ledge for an hour long phone call each evening. When my mother's dementia progressed to that point, I segued her into the Memory Care building of the same ALF she'd been living at for 4 years.

It's a shrunken down world in Memory Care; much less overwhelming than having a full service apartment is, with cooking apparatus and the like. Lots more caregivers to help the residents with 100% of everything. In mom's MC, they had a movie going every night in the activity room, and residents doing puzzles, etc. It was a very small (23 people) environment which lent itself to being more family like; the activity room had a big fireplace, so it was more like a big family room than anything else. That's where the residents gathered to do everything, including eating meals. That's how most MC's are set up; to provide that cozy family room feeling to the residents who want to stay up later or socialize.

If my mom felt lonely or scared in the evenings, she had 'her girls' as she called them, who'd come into her room and sit with her and talk about their children and their goals in life, etc. They'd comb her hair and just sit on her bed and shoot the breeze. That doesn't happen in regular AL; there's too many residents and too high of a resident to caregiver ratio to make such a thing plausible. In MC, the resident to caregiver ratio is much better; mom's MC was 7:1, or somewhere in that neighborhood.

Your mom just needs more attention in the evenings than she's getting right now. You can hire a companion to sit with her, or look into moving her into MC, although nobody can guarantee she'll be 'kept going until 9 pm'.

If you feel it's anxiety mom is experiencing, perhaps a call to her PCP is in order for a low dose of calming meds. My mom did well on .25 mgs of Ativan when her Sundowning got bad.

I see in your comment that you're moving mom to a different ALF: A full activities calendar during the day is a MUST. Hoping for the best outcome for all concerned.

Wishing you the best of luck.
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NeedHelpWithMom Jan 2023
Your mom’s facility sounds like it was a great fit for her.
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Glad you may have found a new place for her. Living in a place where the streets roll up at 6PM borders on neglect. In the spring and summer the sun is up until 7 or 8. Why should residents be left completely alone and forced to do nothing but watch TV alone or go to sleep? Sometimes it seems to me that “assisted living” is just living in an apartment where the rent is astronomically high….
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So’s parents have a cat. He got called during the pandemic by hysterical parents over this cat after the box got so saturated with waste that the cat flung it all over the place. They are only fit pet owners because their 247 takes care of the cat and the dog.
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If M ‘cries practically every night’ on the phone to you for an hour, is your long phone call actually doing much good? Or any good? It certainly isn’t doing YOU any good. It finishes your day on a miserable note, and it’s quite possibly causing M to dwell on her problems. It stops her adjusting to the fact that her life has changed. If she is crying, it ISN'T 'meeting her needs', social or otherwise.

I really would suggest that you make it a quick call that tells her to turn on her TV. Then give it a couple of weeks and see if things are different. Why keep this up indefinitely?
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Visiting Angels: you could call and ask if they have evening Angels to visit patients.
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Aanyway to get her on facebook to socialize in the evening?
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Does she have familiar items from her own home with her to comfort her? That would be good

I think you had a good idea about an animal companion but maybe not a real one. These cat companions have good reviews:

Lifelike Robotic Cats for Seniors - Joy for All – Ageless Innovation LLC
https://joyforall.com/products/companion-cats

My friend had a soft floppy one she could take with her.

Other ideas are:

In your conversations be sure to give hope and talk about positive things like good things about the day or something to look forward to the next day. It helped my Mom to pray with her. Maybe read a story or positive poems or short stories.

Background tv with soothing shows or images to fall asleep to. We would put a fave oldies do-wop CD on for my Mom. It cycled through the intro a few times repetitively, and she would fall asleep right away.

Soothing music to fall asleep to.

Best of luck!
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There isn't another resident at the AL that stays up later? No staff to circle around? Does she take anything before bedtime to relax her? Chamomile tea or CALM Magnesium? Does she have to stay in her room after a certain time?
I read some of the comments below. Is she active during the day, she might be more ready to chill out come nighttime... Do they have an exercise class there? Is she in a wheelchair?
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My very first thought was 'get her an older cat'--one that's completely litter box trained and get her involved in its care.

I don't like cats, personally, but I know a lot of people who probably love their cats as much or more than their families. A warm cat to snuggle next to at night might really allay her anxiety.

As far as the smell--my YB has about 8 cats (at last count) and you cannot smell a thing from them. Their litter boxes are cleaned daily, they are brushed, bathed and cared for. They're weird, as 'packs' of cats can get, but they are always ready to jump in a warm lap. Even tho I am not a fan of cats, I can see the positive side of having one.
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eat-pray-love Jan 2023
OP says she lives in AL. You can't have a cat in AL.
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If she can scoop the cat box daily and keep the food and water dishes stocked, why not get her a cat? The cat makes an enormous positive difference for my 80-year old mom. Playing with her a little bit during the day, and sitting on her lap and sleeping with her in bed -- that's good stuff, and really ameliorates the loneliness. I have cats too for the same reason.
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hire outside help for those hours or buspar a mild tranquilzer,
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LoopyLoo Jan 2023
Liz said nothing about “knocking her out”. Believe it or not, there’s dosages of psych meds that don’t sedate people.
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As others have suggested find some way to provide companionship with her for the hours most in need , maybe 6-9 p.m. and then help her get ready for bed etc,

Some family members could perhaps create a schedule to assist with this taking turns. Or volunteers from a faith community of choice. Or other volunteers from Agency of Aging or available via the AL facility if they have a list ... You would of course want any outside volunteers to properly screened ( back ground checks etc etc. )

Or hire a companion for these hours. Have the family contribute to the cost .
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Hire a companion for her a few nights a week if you're able to. Not a caregiver, a companion.
Someone who will watch tv with her, play cards, or just talk. There are people who volunteer to do this sort of thing for free. Ask at her AL if they can put you in touch with any organizations that volunteer to do elder companionship. Many times churches offer this service.
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Have you talked to the director at the AL? Maybe she could go to the kitchen and watch preparations for the next day or something. Is she required to go to her room after dinner? Hiring someone to visit with her in the evenings could get expensive. Perhaps look into volunteers. Ask at the senior center in you city if they know of people who would go in and keep her company. It might take several different remedies, phone calls, visitors, and going to the kitchen.
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