My worst nightmare with losing denture; anyone else deal with this issue?

I would definitly get his name engraved on them. Many years ago (too many) I worked in a Nursing home. At night when the patient would go to bed their teeth were put in a cup with their name on it and then placed in a room and someone on the 3rd shift had the job of cleaning everyone's teeth (wouldnt you love that job?) Then in the morning the aid caring for them would pick up their teeth when they were getting them cleaned up in the morning.
Well................. One night one of the wandering patients got up in the night and mixed up all of the teeth. The next morning no one's teeth fit them right and they had no clue how to determine who's was who's . From then on, their teeth did not leave their room. Sounds like in spite of the passing of time, teeth continue to be a problem. I am sorry for your frustration. I would be too.

Sandy

I have no answer for the denture situation, at least Mother still has her own teeth. HOWEVER - she has an eye condition called keratoconous where her corneas are actually cone-shaped and can only be corrected with rigid contacts. She did fine with them until she went into AL. She had her nightly routine down to the minute, and if an aide wasn't available to help her (and, good grief, she'd actually try to track them down in other people's room - to my great dismay), she'd just go ahead and do it herself. Well, naturally, with the tremors she had in her right hand, she was losing them weekly. The ophtalmologist and I (as MPOA) decided that we had the choice of spending $150 each time a contact was replaced, or just letting her not see as well anymore, and opted for the latter. Glasses would be an unnecessary expense, as they wouldn't correct the vision by pushing the cornea back into shape as the contacts did.
So, I can relate to losing expensive remedial and/or prosthetic devices and deciding what to do about it.
Mother was an accomplished artist, so it's been hard for her to accept not being able to see clearly, but she sees well enough to recognize us still! That's worth a lot when she's already been assessed at severe cognitive impairment.

I am sorry you are dealing with this, but yes, dentures, eyeglasses, hearing aides are all virtually impossible to keep up with.  No matter what facility your family member is in, there is never going to be one aide per person to be with them 24 hours a day. And as you know, our elderly / sick family members don't have the where-with-all to keep up with those things.  On top of that, all of the patients in the facility, like your dad, are roaming around grabbing other peoples things and don't even realize it.  It is a cluster for sure.  Dentures, eyeglasses and hearing aides are very expensive and most of us can't afford to replace them.  In our situation, we just had to let it go and considered it part of the dementia process.  I know that sounds horrible, but there is no fix and it will literally drive you crazy if you let it.  Make sure they adjust his meals accordingly.  I'm sorry Harpcat.

This was the worst part of caregiving for me. TG Mom didn't wear dentures and never wore her hearing aides so they didn't go to the LTC with her.

But her glasses were another thing. I took pictures if them. Easier to find.

UPDATE: My sister and I had a conference call with the DON and LTC administrator yesterday. I had sent them both a typewritten page of the things I observed while I was there from the dirty disheveled bathroom to the litter on my dad's floor to the staff issues and then on to the missing denture. The DON said they had only gone missing since last Thursday or Friday, she couldn’t remember which as no one made a note in his chart, and told staff to call one of us (we are co-POAs). Of course no one did. The LPN who told me it’d been two weeks was spoken with by the DON and she said she was mistaken. It was an hour conference call and I feel we got all our concerns across and addressed.
Here is what they "think" happened. There was a stomach virus going around so residents were eating out of styrofoam trays. Dad takes his dentures out often. They think he may have put them in a napkin on the tray and they got tossed. They said the aid looked everywhere for them. So we are assuming they are now in the landfill somewhere. Dad.s dementia will not permit him to withstand getting another set made. His were quite old and even when we had a new set made 2 years ago he refused to wear them to get used to them. Then when we had a temporary liner out in the upper for better fit, he ripped it out. So we are done with getting dentures re made. He will have to go without. As I said I was hoping he would die before his dentures got loss, but instead we are living the nightmare I envisioned. So the speech therapist will observe how he eats and diet modifications made based on her observations. Since this is not a Medicaid facility, they are likely not responsible for them. We are filing grievances for the fact that we were not notified and also for a medication refill error. Leadership comes from the top down and they need to up their game which my sister told them in a very professional way. (She’s an RN, geriatric nurse practitioner and a former administrator at the VNA). So there we are. The hard part will be hearing from dad over and over that he needs new dentures. Sigh.
some of your stories were funny and makes us all realize the trials we go through as caregivers. Thank you for responding!!

Before my mother was placed in the NH she stopped wearing her lower denture. She would only use the upper denture. Eventually in the NH she also did not want to wear the upper denture anymore as well. The NH dietician changed her diet to purée food, but she wouldn’t eat it. I asked the dietician to change her diet to semi-purée and my mother accepted the change.

My mother also lost her glasses a few times in the NH. The last time they were missing for two weeks, when I discovered that another resident was wearing them. I approached that woman and she said that she could not see out of those glasses. I explained that it was because the glasses were not hers, but belonged to my mother. She gave them back to me.

I guess what I am telling you is that unless you are there in the NH 24/7 there are situations beyond your control. NH aides are there
8-12 hours a day then go home. The next aide may not know your parent had dentures or glasses, or someone else took them, or your parent left them on the lunch tray, or threw them away.

His diet needs to be changed to a mechanical soft, this is where the meat is ground up so the resident doesn't have so much to chew. The staff is able to downgrade a resident's diet without a doctor's order but they must have a doctor's order to upgrade a diet (mechanical soft to regular.)

Federal regulations do require that a facility notify a family/legal representative any time there is a change with a resident, this would include losing dentures. I would question the DON/Administrator as to why this was not done.

Reading updates and thinking more about this, it still mostly comes down to the patient and their condition (mainly those with dementia - for other hospital/rehab stays, this shouldn't happen!) However, I still think it is irresponsible and inexcusable that notification isn't made right away (maybe not the instant they were gone, but one would think it would be noticed sooner than 2 weeks, and of course they say/change the scenario when taken to task!) and that meal modification wasn't started asap. An email was sent to me as soon as they found the hearing aid in the finished laundry (too late to save it!) and again when the replacement was MIA.

When dad was still living in the condo with mom, she was LIVID when he picked her hearing aid up off the table at breakfast and bit/broke it. Although never DXed, he likely had some form of dementia by then. The ironic part of that is years later she did the very same thing! Of course then it was just an accident, and it didn't get her riled up!

At some point later, still living in the condo, her hearing aid went missing. Some relatives visiting from Canada did a search and found it, but it was broken. The provider came right over and set her up with a new one. So, later when it was time for "the move", YB found one in the bed sheets. This meant there were TWO working hearing aids (she only used one.) I suspect the broken one that was "found" was the one she had bit/broken, but never threw it away! The provider came to the MC place and adjusted both so that she was wearing two. No idea what happened to one of them, and the second was the one that went through the laundry. The point is even living in her own place she managed to lose/break them - no staff involved!

As for accusing others, sure, there are those with dementia who "shop" other rooms and take things, but more often than not the person hides things or puts them away in a "safe" place, and then forgets where they left it. Once missing, they accuse others of stealing. Mom did this after OB visited - she accused them of stealing her tweezers. This was before I realized she was starting down the dementia path (retrospect meant some of the things she said/did could be vague early signs that are easily missed!) At the time I just asked her why they would steal something they could get easily for less than $2!?!? I picked up another for her so she would have one. When cleaning out her place, I found at least THREE tweezers in her MB BR AND about 6 more in a plastic cup in a dresser drawer!

All too often the hearing aid or dentures in a tissue/napkin at mealtime happens and no one notices, so it gets tossed. If being cared for at home, any one of these scenarios could happen to us or hired care-givers. Sad, but unfortunately true. I would have been happy if they would meet us halfway with the replacement (they came with loss warranty, $400 to replace one aid), mainly because when these were purchased, the task was placed on them to care for it (rechargeable and I was not about to trust mom with the charger!) Mom was at that time still mobile, would get around on her own and needed VERY little care other than being in a safe place and eating better. However she also would sometimes forget that she needs a hearing aid and all too often was taking it out. Now they are monitoring better and taking it away when she takes it out.

They do also just wear out and break, you know, eventually.

So so far, you've found out that it went missing two weeks ago - was that in his notes, or did someone tell you? I'm wondering if the same source can also reveal what was documented at the time and who you need to approach to find out more about what was done to look for them.

Of course you need to take this further, but eyes on the prize: they could still be on a shelf somewhere waiting to be claimed, don't despair until you know.

My dad suffered a GI upset and I suspect his upper dentures were thrown away when they cleaned him up. It was aggravating because he had just gone through 6-8 weeks of getting them relined and adjusted. The dentures went missing in early April and it wasn't until late July that he finally had them replaced and fitting properly. The nursing home paid for the replacement. Having the ability to chew is so important to better health. On the other hand, my mom wore a partial and when she became sick with pneumonia, the staff left them in place for an extended period of time leading to additional health problems. A checklist of important things like dentures and hearing aids posted by the bed would help the workers, but I was told that posting a simple reminder violated HIPPA. Ridiculous and harmful as it can take forever to replace these items.