Without going into LONG history, my 85-yr old aunt was recently admitted to LTC. She has a few occasional days that she is lucid-her old self but most days she is “not there”; has fallen numerous times (at home) resulting in broken bones; cannot walk on her own, etc. She’s been determined incapacitated for making decision so I am her POA and Medical decision maker.
My question is, is she where she needs to be or should she be in a MC facility? What is the difference in her treatment?
Thank you for your assistance.
A Concerned Niece
My mother's MC told me that they could handle my mother's needs until a point where either there needs to be care for bedsores, or long-term IV Meds administration.
She is on Palliative Care from Hospice.
Don't use puppy pads on any furniture humans use. They work by containing a chemical that attracts the puppy to them, and once wet with urine this chemical can do an older person's skin a power of no good. I only heard about this a few months ago, it was certainly news to me, but it's quite true. Use 'Dry Nites' or peapods or kylies or whatever brand you like as long as it's for humans.
Anyway. Back to the ltc/mc debate.
The long history does matter, unfortunately; because the assessment of your aunt's needs should have looked at it very carefully.
Long term care should be adaptable to the person's physical support needs as they change, and should also be able to accommodate loss of some cognitive and sensory abilities; but memory care is primarily focused on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing of people who are living with dementia and therefore progressively losing all of their functional abilities - often with comparatively little physical impairment.
In old fashioned terms: would you *primarily* describe your aunt as being elderly, frail, or mentally frail?
If Aunt is settled in where she is and you are happy with the facility, I would not move her. Changes are hard on people who suffer from a Dementia.
MC emphasizes mental stimulation and organized activities rather than letting residents decide on their own what they want to do.