Howdy. My DH and I are responsible for his aunt, age 90, in a retirement community. She is faltering, mentally, and is the last survivor of her generation which included 10 other sisters and one brother.
She is in skilled care nursing. She had breast cancer operations three times and seems cancer-free now, but she can't hold still for any testing. She had heart attacks and can't be operated on, but she seems pretty good in that department. She has maybe 50% of her heart capacity working.
We have been through senior dementia care with my father-in-law and now with this aunt. Here's the rub. We are moving again, and we will be 115 miles from Aunty. She likes where she is, so there is no need to move her at this time.
Anyone on here have experience with long-distance care? The facility is delightful. They have worked hard to adjust to our aunt, and she has adjusted to them. They did stop all her medicines and that made her 100% better, attitude wise.
They don't restrain her, and that has helped her because she resented the alarms going off day and night when she got out of bed. Her area is carpeted, so she falls only on carpet. The alternative was horrible, tying her down or penning her up. this facility won't tie anyone down. In her last place we didn't know any better, and they kept her tied in a wheelchair.
We honestly had no idea there was another better way to care for our Aunt. She would have fallen at the other place. At the new place they do therapy every day to keep her strong and she can walk. She also can use a walker and sometimes she sits in a wheelchair and pushes her walker in front of her. She pushes herself along with her feet, in the corridors without carpet.
Also she is on hospice, because she might die because they stopped all her medicines. They did that because she stopped eating because she was mad about the alarms she set off when she would get out of bed.
Now she eats some, and isn't losing as much weight, and she converses and reads. She does word search puzzles all day long. So if anyone on here wants to talk about eldercare, I am here.
