Mom has been in MC for 2 1/2 years and is doing very well. Her dementia is progressing but we know that she is happy there by her interaction with her friends and other MC residents. I.E. Last time I went to take her to lunch she asked if her friend could go with? Also she can't be away from "home" more than an hour or two before becoming anxious and asking to return.
My Mom was a Psych nurse for 40 years and she believes she is at work every day. She thinks the staff works for her. And she also believes that the resident doctor for the facility has offered her a new job at the local hospital. She is considering it.
Our family will be moving to a nearby city 3 hours away and we are planning on moving Mom. In looking at the facilities near our new home, we ran into a newer business model that is for MC only. It has 52 residents. What I liked about it was that all of the staff is extensively trained in MC and the many types of dementia. Also there are locks on the residents rooms and the rooms are locked when the residents are not in them.
The MC business model she is currently in has only 15 residents in MC with another side for AL only. This means her experience is limited to the MC smaller space. I believe she likes this. Smaller seems to be better. BUT she is not allowed to lock her door and the anxiety and paranoia this causes is high. She thinks everyone comes into her room and steals things. She has not had anything stolen at all during her stay.
I'm torn... I love the idea of having a dedicated Dementia staff and 50 residents that she can interact with but also concerned that it may overwhelm her. I KNOW that having a lock on her door will ease her anxiety. The ratio of staff to patient is 8 to 1 at the dedicated MC facility. The ratio of staff to patient at the AL/MC facility is much higher but they are not all trained in dementia.
My mom has Lewy Body Dementia which means she has days where she can be very high functioning and then there are many more days now where her reality is very different. Her short term memory has become very bad in recent days.
We were able to recently sell her home and have invested the proceeds to help pay for her care so the difference in price between the two is not really an issue.
However, the Dedicated MC facility does allow for her to stay in place through to her passing with hospice and family present. The AL/MC facility does not allow for this and requests you to remove her to nursing home when they can no longer care for her physical needs.
Has anyone had experiences with Dedicated MC facilities that could offer some guidance?
Maybe you could mock-up some kind of fake keypad for your mom's door in the good place, because that should not be the barrier to where she'd get the best care. Mom's place has locked closets, so all the "valuables" (of which there are none) are kept in there.
I'll be eternally grateful for the trained caregivers my mother has had in her MC, and now that we're a week or two from the end, I know they'll handle things perfectly until Mom is gone. That's the kind of peace of mind YOU want from a place where you put her.