Vivant Senior Living receives phone calls and emails from families weighing moving their family members from their home to memory care. We know it is a significant decision, so we want to provide a post with necessary items to consider if now is the right time to move mom or dad into memory care. Some of the things we will cover in this post are safety, burnout, level of care, and cost.

Safety

Your loved one may be living in their own home or with another family member. It is important to remember that dementia can progress, and behaviors change. One day your family member is doing fine with daily check-ins to take their pet out or reminders to take their medication. Still, now their behavior is becoming more erratic and unpredictable. It is common for elderly experiencing dementia to start refusing medication, wandering out of the house or yard, or having issues like forgetting to turn the stove off after cooking. When safety issues pop up more frequently than you are comfortable with, we recommend exploring memory care options. Vivant Senior Living specializes in memory care, and all of our locations provide secure exits, medication management, and 24/7 caregivers.

Burnout

If your loved one experiencing dementia is living by themselves, with you or another family member, the changing behaviors can be challenging. As soon as you feel like you can help manage or assist with the new behavior, a new one starts. It can be challenging to see a loved one progress on their dementia journey, especially if they begin to forget who they are or who you are. If you or a family member is experiencing stress and burnout from trying to provide care for your loved one, we recommend looking into memory care options. Vivant Senior Living has a whole team of caregivers specializing in memory care. Caregivers must get time for self-care and healing. It will give you the strength and time to find the resolve to deal with the continuing progression. We are here so you can get sleep at night. 

We also recommend reading "Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and Grief," a new kind of caregiving book by Pauline Boss, which talks about the physical, emotional, and spiritual stress and grief a caregiver experiences when someone they love is undergoing memory loss.

Level of care

Some memory care residents require assistance with medication, showering, eating, toileting, and more. It can be time-consuming to provide this care to your loved one. If you have a job or other tasks that require you to be away from home, it can be challenging to get all of it done. It might be even tougher to get it all done if you work from home as so many people nowadays. Vivant Senior Living can handle most advanced dementia behaviors, including assistance with medication, showering, eating, toileting, and one-person transfers. When the level of care your loved one requires becomes too much for you or another family member, we are here to help.

Cost

We get calls from family members who have private duty caregivers coming over to their loved one's homes to provide care. Typically you start with a daily check-in, but then it slowly escalates to a few hours per day to whole night shifts and twenty-four hours per day. Paying for around-the-clock private duty care for your loved one may be the best fit for them, but it can cost more than other memory care options. Vivant Senior Living has multiple caregivers during day shifts in our memory care homes. Our total care costs will usually be far less than paying for a single around-the-clock caregiver. Please contact us today to learn more about our memory care options and pricing.