While moving into a facility for assisted living in San Diego is a tough change for anyone to make, it can be especially difficult and upsetting for a person with dementia or Alzheimer’s. It’s quite easy for a person with dementia to become quickly agitated and fearful and making a huge change can be an enormous challenge. Still, memory care assisted living can be the safest option for a person in mid-stage to late-stage dementia. To make the transition easier, consider some of the following tips.
1. Take Your Time Selecting A Facility
Rushing into a decision is one of the biggest mistakes families often make when selecting a facility for assisted living in San Diego. Simply diving in and visiting one or two facilities is not the best option. You need to do some research about assisted living in general and then visit a variety of facilities to truly get a feel for how these care homes function. This decision can take several weeks or months, but taking your time can mean that you end up with the best possible facility for your loved one.
2. Select A Memory Care Facility
Not all assisted living facilities in San Diego are prepared to handle residents with dementia. You will need to select a facility that specializes in memory care. These facilities are designed to be as secure as possible, but also as calming as possible to reduce the stress of the residents.
Memory care assisted living facilities should include specially trained employees that know how to calm and care for residents with all types of dementia in all of its stages. Generally, these facilities also plan activities and outings geared toward people with dementia. The ultimate goal is to provide a safe environment that reduces stress and makes life as pleasant as possible for people with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.
3. Ease Into The Transition
In a perfect world, your loved one would come with you to visit facilities and then select their favorite among several choices. Of course, when a person has dementia, it can be quite difficult to include them in the selection process and very stressful for them to visit many different facilities, let alone to remember specific details about each place. Often, families have to make this decision without a great deal of input from their loved one.
Once you have selected a facility for assisted living in San Diego, however, take the opportunity to take them to the facility for a couple of visits. It can be a great idea to take them to lunch at the facility once or twice prior to the move-in date, and you can set up these lunch excursions with the facility staff. If possible, bring along one of your loved one’s friends or perhaps bring another family member to make the experience as enjoyable as possible.
4. Plan Move-In Day Carefully
You probably have noticed that your loved one with dementia has good days and bad days. In general, you also might find that there are certain times of the day where they are at their best. On the day set for moving into assisted living in San Diego, plan to bring your loved one over during the time of day where they tend to be the happiest and calmest. This can make the settling in process a bit smoother and easier.
5. Surround Your Loved One With Familiarity
Imagine leaving your beloved home and moving into a completely unfamiliar setting that has no traces of your previous residence. Now imagine doing that when you have the additional struggle of having dementia. When you move your loved one into an assisted living apartment, be sure that you decorate the apartment before he or she arrives.
Bring over a favorite chair, hang up family pictures on the wall, and make the bed with favorite sheets and blankets. Adding familiar and favorite items can go a long way to making someone feel at home in their new surroundings.
If you need to begin the search for assisted living in San Diego, the team at Care Placement can help. We are a free eldercare placement service, and finding top-quality memory care assisted living facilities is one of our specialties. To get started, fill out our Assess Your Needs questionnaire, and one of our representatives will quickly get in touch with you.