Bringing up your concerns about care to an aging parent can be tricky, especially if they are living with cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia. Thanks to better awareness and early diagnosis, older adults are receiving dementia diagnoses years earlier than in the past, allowing them to participate in decisions about their care and planning for the future. Still, it can be quite difficult to talk with your parent about moving to memory care. If you’re approaching this conversation, these tips might help you to talk with your loved one while honoring their opinions.
What is memory care?
Memory care in a facility provides a safe environment for people living with cognitive decline who can no longer safely live at home or care for themselves. Facilities have specially trained staff and specialized memory-related programming to give your loved one a safe, engaging, and social living environment. The details of your loved one’s condition and the memory care facility’s offerings can help you decide if memory care is right for your loved one.
Dementia symptoms and progression
Although symptoms vary by person and by the cause of dementia, memory loss and trouble with thinking are the main ones. In the early stages, your loved one may be forgetful or misplace items. You may also notice minor behavioral changes. Still, they can be largely independent. As the disease progresses, though, symptoms will worsen. Your loved one will have greater issues with memory and cognition, eventually leading to an inability to communicate.
Knowing the benefits of memory care and how it might help your parent doesn’t make it easier to have the conversation about moving them to a memory care facility, especially when you factor in the level of your loved one’s cognitive decline. Their cognitive ability will affect the conversation you have. Here are some tips for having a conversation about memory care.
Starting the conversation about moving to a memory care facility
Ideally, your conversation about memory care should begin when your senior loved one can participate in the discussion. Today’s older adults are being diagnosed with dementia earlier than in decades past. This early diagnosis can mean earlier interventions to enhance their quality of life and give the person the opportunity to get their affairs in order and advocate for their future plans. An earlier diagnosis can also offer both the person and their family members the opportunity to work through their new reality individually and together emotionally.
Think of this as a planning conversation. Your loved one will not likely need to move immediately if they can function safely at home. However, since they are still in the early stages of the disease, they can participate in plans for their future care, from where they’d like to receive care to how they want to pay for it.
Ask open-ended questions about moving to memory care
Here are some open-ended prompts and questions you can discuss with your parent if they are in the early stages of dementia that will help you talk about how a memory care community can support the life they want:
- •Describe how having assistance with bathing a few times per week might help your comfort and safety, along with knowing you will always feel clean and groomed.
- •Would it be convenient for you to have your laundry done each week?
- •What kinds of meals and snacks would you like to have that you might not be able to prepare yourself?
- •What types of activities and social opportunities would you like to have available to you that you might not otherwise do on your own?
- •How might it help you to have 24/7 access to professionals and caregivers specially trained in helping people with dementia?
You should recognize that your parent has authority over their life at this point and respect their opinions. It’s also helpful to acknowledge that your parent may be reluctant to discuss the situation due to anxiety or depression over their diagnosis. Be sure to approach them with grace, and choose a time when they are in the right frame of mind for the conversation. Be clear and honest about your concerns, and reassure them that you want only to keep them safe and cared for.
Consider your shared concerns to create solutions
Here are some aspects of life that become more challenging to address safely as dementia progresses. When your parent is open to the discussion, you can discuss your shared concerns and hopes for handling these parts of life through moving to memory care. Safe and helpful solutions may appear through memory care services.
- •Maintaining personal hygiene through bathing, brushing your teeth, and changing into new, climate-appropriate clothes daily.
- •Cooking nutritious yet tasty meals.
- •Eating food safely.
- •Staying hydrated.
- •Taking medications as prescribed in the right quantities and at the right frequencies.
- •Keeping the living environment tidy and free of trip hazards.
- •Taking out the trash and recycling.
- •Maintaining the lawn and structure of the home.
- •Getting enough social interaction and mental stimulation.
- •Remembering to attend doctor appointments.
- •Getting to and from doctor appointments.
When you discuss the topics and questions above, you may be unable to consider them all at once. This might be a difficult conversation if your parent becomes distressed or saddened when thinking about how typical tasks will become challenging and impossible to do independently. Take your time with this discussion, and remind your parent that senior living communities that offer memory care exist to help people living with dementia tackle all these tasks. In fact, memory care communities often cover all these responsibilities and more. A memory care community may be the all-in-one solution they will come to love.
It can be helpful to take them on tours of communities. This way, they can tell you what they like and do not like so that you can remember their preferences when you begin searching for memory care options when they eventually need a higher level of care.
Include memory care professionals in the discussion
If your loved one was diagnosed with dementia later in the disease’s progression, they might not be able to actively participate in their future planning due to confusion, poor judgment, and disorientation. This can make having a conversation about moving to a memory care community more uncomfortable and difficult.
If your loved one currently lives in a senior living community, like an independent living or assisted living community, you can enlist the support of the team members who work there to help you during the conversation about moving. They are experts who can offer encouragement and guidance as you begin to search for a community that can better suit your loved one’s ever-changing needs.
If your loved one will be moving to a memory care community from home, you can work with the team members of the community where they will move. Memory care communities often coordinate with family members to ensure a smooth transition for the senior.
It is important to note that if your loved one has impaired short-term memory, as many living in the later-early and mid-stage of dementia do, having a conversation about your concerns and the prospect of moving to memory care will not always be productive. You might start the conversation, your loved one might be upset or confused, and then after you comfort them, they may have forgotten about it. Revisiting it over and over can be traumatic for you and for them. Instead, you can focus on the transition to their new home and do your best to make it as seamless as possible.
Moving to memory care is a tough transition no matter if your loved one was a part of the decision-making process or not. Give yourself and your loved one lots of grace as you both learn this new rhythm together. With tips for how to talk about memory care for your parent and how to smooth the transition, you can have peace of mind in knowing that you have made the best decision for everyone.
