Mom going from assisted living to memory care building. How to get her there?

I'm so happy this is working out well for your mom. Thanks for coming back and following up with us.

That sounds like a great unit, Schoff. Glad to hear you and she have had a good outcome - just concentrate on that! Hugs.

Follow up 2 weeks later: it was an awful moving day. We had to have her escorted by staff. I was told to stay away for a few days but her aid stopped by the next day. Mom was confused and anxious, she kept saying she wanted to go home. Zanax helped. Anyway she is settling in and I am pleasantly surprised. She is more comfortable in a smaller environment (33 residents of various levels) and they keep them very busy. She has been on one bus s trip already and is making friends. She likes being on her own ( they help her with everything but she feels more independent without her aids)
Anyway Memory care is just what she needed!

No they are doing the move. I'll have her companion help

I would have the memory care people and AL people drug her and then move her. They have more skills and experience dealing with this than you do. Let me ask you something, did someone say that you, yourself has to move her there?

Thanks for your comments. Mom may be a risk for falling, but she is quite steady on her feet but walks slow. She has refused a walker and call button. I worry about falls all the time, but she fell holding on to me once. I have alerted the staff about her needs, and fortunately she knows some of them, as they work in both AL and Memory care and look familiar to her. I am hoping with the motion detection devices they will attend to her in the night. Then when she goes to the bathroom she can take care of business and go back to bed. I hate to move her, but as I said before, I am spending more money on AL with aids than I would in memory care. She needs a smaller environment (33 residents) vs. 120 in AL) with activities that she can do. When the day comes for 24 hour aids, it's nursing home for her. I will talk to doctor today about anti-anxiety drugs for the week.

Schoff, there may be no good answer to this question.

My mom had been in Independent Living before ashe had a stroke that left her confused, aphasic and with vascular dementia...but smart as a tack, sees what's going on and misinterprets EVERYTHING.

We moved her from rehab to a lovely AL near where my brother lives. We took her in my vcar, soft music, lots of calm explanations. She wept, then tried to pull the steering wheel from my husband.

We got her inside, we took her to lunch, brother calmed her down, took her to see her new apt ( this isn't my bathroom, she said). After several hours of reassurance, we left. Staff said they'd leave the door open to check on her.

1/2 hour later, they called. Staff found her on the floor. She had no memory of falling, and couldn't figure out how to push the button.

We transferred her to memory care the next day. Then added a 24/7 aide becauze she still couldn't function well enough. With 2 aides in her room, she fell a few nights later. Broken hip, rehab, nursing home. Now, quite content.

I would talk to the staff at the AL to see what they suggest. Also talk to her doctor about anti-anxiety meds if she's not on them, or increased dose short term. "The doctor needs you to be here for a while mom" might work. Good luck!

I wonder if the negative things your mother has heard about memory care might include horror stories about how they come for you, drug you and carry you away to be locked up in there with no one to explain what's happening.

If it were me, I'd approach this move as if it were a logistical project. Go and see her new room. Figure out exactly where her things are going to go. Work out the travel route: can you go via a garden, can you take her out on a short car trip, or work in some other distraction? I agree about getting in packers/movers for most of it, but pack a small case for her with her most familiar everyday objects to make sure those are the first things she sees in her new room.

The idea is that you leave her room, you go to Point A - garden, café, dining room, t.v. lounge, short drive around somewhere scenic - and then after a natural interval you go to her new room, which will already be laid out with familiar objects. In a perfect world, you would also enlist the help of the staff: your mother should be introduced to members of the memory care team by members of the ALF team that she knows and likes. What you're aiming for is calm and continuity.

Don't feel guilty - it's unhelpful, and it's inappropriate. You're not doing anything terrible to your mother, you're moving her to a place of safety where her care needs can be met. If the worst happens and she freaks out, take her to neutral territory, sit quietly and reassure her, then let the staff take over. Have you discussed the plan with them in advance, by the way? Are they primed to help?

May I ask if she needs 24 hour care because of the stroke or confusion?

Memory care is considered assisted living not nursing and where my mom is many residents have personal caregivers - my mom included -

If your mm doesn't understand anything then let staff arrange transport and you can visit as you normally do to downplay the change

I suggest you have them sedate her and move her there themselves, without you present. She is less likely to throw a tantrum that way. Hire movers too. Take a step back until she is settled in.