Mom is on hospice in assisted living. She refuses to take all of her meds. So now shes hallucinating, angry, paranoid, etc. She tells me things that are so unbelievable, like people shooting guns at her, ducks being let loose in her room. Then she tells me things that could possibly be happening, like catheter is leaking & her room smells like urine, they aren't giving her breathing treatments but once a day, etc. I have talked to the nurse at facilities & she has shown me signed charts of when they gave her breathing treatments. How can I make sure that shes really being treated well, when I can't get in to assisted living to check because of COVID?
It is very hard, when you cannot go check due to Covid.
I agree with Mysteryshopper. Having them call you when they turn on their call light will help to know if that is really happening. That is what I did when my mother started saying she wasn't getting her 8pm meds. It helped!
Since everyone on the forum seems to be experiencing this same circumstance, it must be part of dementia. It's so nice to be able to talk/encourage others who are going through the same things. This is all new to me.
Try to ignore the people who tell you how gruesome these 'horrible places' are, and how your mother is being terribly mistreated and sitting in her own feces 24/7. Contrary to what they're saying, nobody's filming a horror movie in your mother's ALF, believe it or not. If you know the ALF, and you know the staff, and you also know that your demented mother is a big story teller (and/or liar like MY mother is and has been for 90+ years), then rely on what the nursing staff is telling you.
That's my advice from dealing with all this nonsense since 2014.
Good luck!
Nursing homes are understaffed now, more than ever. The squeaky wheel gets the care.
If you don’t give her credibility, she may ‘give up’ and stop sharing her concerns.
My youngest daughter lived with my mother and dependent grandmother for a couple years while she was in college and my husband's military career required us to move a lot. My daughter would be doing the usual stuff that college students do: have outings with friends that went a little late, work on school projects (she was a fashion design student) and leave work on a table... It seems my mom had a hard time dealing with this. She would call me to complain about my daughter. I would ask my mom, "Have you talked to her about it?" and "Is she home now?" Most of the time she hadn't talked to my daughter and my daughter was there while my mother was complaining to me. So, I would tell my mom to talk to my daughter. I would then call my daughter and tell her, "Grandma is upset about...., please talk to her about it." My daughter would say, "Why won't she talk to me about it?" and "I'm home now, so why is she complaining to you." Granted my daughter is no saint but she did help take care of her great grandmother, she is neater than most college students, and she did manage to find her husband during that time period.
All that to say that when situations change, some people do well with the changes and others "act out" as a way of saying they want the "usual way" back in place. I would talk with the nursing staff about anything mom says that is concerning. They can show you her charts that display the care she is being given. Keep reminding your mom that you love her and can't wait to see her after COVID-19 is no longer a problem.
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