My 82 year old MIL will have her first overnight stay in an assisted living facility as a trial run to see how she tolerates it. She is currently going to Adult Daycare 3 days a week for 4 hours in the evening and seems to tolerate it well for the most part. They keep her busy which is good.
Personality wise, she is very co-dependent, clingy, mostly miserable personality, and she's just grumpy all the time. Not to mention manipulative.
But when she's in the throws of a spell of dementia, she's mostly clingy, confused, or just asks questions as if they are normal questions, and we play along.
What sort of things did you tell your loved one in order for them to be somewhat receptive to sleeping over their first night?
Usually when we drop her off to daycare, we tell her "You're going to a party", or "visiting a friend", or "going to a wedding/baby shower" and she's none the wiser. It gets her to stay and she ends up having a good time!
I just don't know what to tell my husband to say to her when she ends up staying over. Do you say things like "We are going on an overnight trip? We are going to a hotel?" - our concern is that she will look for one of us and she will know right away she's in a strange place and won't want to stay there.
Any advice would be really appreciated.
I'm not saying that this will be easy, because it won't be. It took my mom about a month to get used to things at the memory care unit. She was very dependent on me and every time I went to see her, she would cling to me and beg me to take her home. The case manager suggested that I stay away for a few days or even a week, so my mom could get acclimated. It worked very well.
And that her bedroom is set up similar to what she had at home. I made sure I was able to get my Dad's highboy to the right of his bed, same with his night stand, as that is how he had it for the past 30 years at his house. That gave him comfort when he woke up during the night. Also, bring bedspread used at home, that's another comfort.
Majority of the time, an elder will say they hate the place, they want to come home. The will have 101 complaints. If every grown child brings back their parent to the house, then Assisted Living facilities would be empty.
Hopefully your Mom will like her stay at Assisted Living, especially being around people of her own age group.
My Dad first started out in Independent Living which made it so much easier to later move him to the Memory Care section of the complex. His only concern was if he was going to have the same chef prepare the meals. His Memory Care room was small compared to his IL apartment, so I joked that he is moving in a dorm room, and that became the standing joke between us :)