Beth Britton in 2012
@bethyb1886
Moving a loved one into a care home
is one of the most difficult, emotional and life-changing things you
will ever do. It is even more challenging when the person you are moving
into a care home has dementia, and if the advancement of that is what
is forcing the move to happen, your loved one will probably be unable to
make their own decisions about their care, leaving it to their family
to make some very tough choices.
Over the course of my father’s
dementia we had to find a new home for him on three separate occasions;
initially a residential home with an EMI (Elderly Mentally Infirm) unit,
then an EMI nursing home, and finally a home that could meet his
end-of-life care needs.
Dad was never able to play any part
in these searches, and I remember vividly commencing that first round of
visiting homes with huge trepidation. You are conscious of finding
somewhere that your loved one will like, and where the care, atmosphere,
staffing, facilities, services, opportunities and location match your
expectations.
Many people look for somewhere that
they can visit easily, but the overwhelming consideration has to be
quality of care. Looking back on that first foray into choosing a home,
we knew so very little about what exactly we were really looking for,
but we settled on a home that, based on dad’s assessment, should have
been able to meet his needs.
Just a few short months later,
however, and the home said that they could not manage dad’s increasingly
challenging behaviour, so it was back to hospital for dad, and for us, back to finding him a home, only this time we had to look at nursing homes.
Cue visits to three homes ….
Until next time…
