There may come a time when your parent's medical needs are too complex to care for at home. There are many factors to consider and questions to ask when deciding the best option for your parent?s living arrangements. While the process can be daunting and even guilt-ridden, you do not need to go through this alone. Your Sollievo advisors will be there to help you make informed, timely decisions.
When is it time to select a nursing home? At the mid-stage of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias a caregiver often has to manage the challenges of:
- Difficult behaviors such as agitation and restlessness, or the extreme reaction to an event or situation which the person with dementia doesn't understand
- Wandering, and the challenges of keeping someone safe in the home, particularly during the nighttime hours
Care can be a 24 hour a day / 7 day a week task as the person with mid-stage dementia often has day and nighttime routines mixed up. This can create difficulty managing the person safely in the home during the hours a caregiver is sleeping, or may be in another part of the home.
The late stage of Alzheimer's disease usually requires intensive, around-the-clock assistance. A person in late-stage Alzheimer's usually:
- Has difficulty eating and swallowing
- Needs assistance walking and eventually becomes bedridden or chair-bound
- Needs full-time help with personal care, including toileting
- Is vulnerable to infections and pneumonia
- Loses the ability to communicate with words
At this stage, care requires a fair amount of physical capacity and endurance, as well as additional caregiver support which may strain or exhaust financial resources.
If you are not sure if it's time? to select a nursing home, ask yourself a few questions:
