The concrete floor does not trigger a good memory.
It’s a memory of horse race tickets falling to the floor. A memory of running around with your sisiter and collecting old race tickets. You would grab the clean ones from the floor and shuffle them into huge stacks, sometimes stopping to pinch them together and fan them into a flurry of falling tickets, only to recollect them a few minutes later.
Eventually you would give these stacks of tickets and to your mom and she would store them in empty paper cups. Cups that had earlier been filled with beer from the tap. Your mom would pore over these discarded tickets for hours. Checking old programs to see if at least one of them might have been a missed winner.
The smell of beer and the stickiness of the concrete floor are two of your greatest memories of the inside of the race track stadium. You hope that onlookers thought that you and your sister were involved in more than a game as you raced through the grandstand, especially the lower level, in search of a used, discarded ticket that might instead be a treasure. It is unlikely that anyone thought much of your activity.
Since her need for Alzheimer?s care, however, not even a stack of old tickets that you found in an old dresser can help you reconnect with your mother. As you spin the tale of of you and your sister rummaging through empty areas collecting the spoils of an earlier crowd, you hope that something you say will help you reconnect with your mother during your visit to the senior housing care center. As you show her photos of both you and your sister with towering, and often leaning, stacks of cups that you collected from the empty seats of a college football game or a professional baseball game, you long for the photos to rekindle a memory.
Cup collections that are taller than the children collecting them or sticky racetrack cement floors are rarely enough, however, to bring your mother back from her blank stare and jumbled memories. Unfortunately, however, you rarely crack the the frozen surface of your mom’s stares. You find comfort in the fact, though, that your mother is well cared for and that she seems to be content. You find yourself sad, but know the Alzheimer?s care is useful in keeping your mother calm and healthy.
Senior Home Care Facility Locations Can Provide Families with Options for Their Loved Ones
Families that find themselves looking for Alzheimer?s care for a loved one often have two very different options. The first, in home services, allows patients to stay in familiar surroundings as long as possible. The second option, an Alzheimer?s care facility, provides a full staff that provides around the clock care.
It is not only Alzheimer’s patients that find themselves in need of medical care and attention. And while some families opt for care settings in a medical facility, a growing number of parents attempt to help their loved ones stay at home. In fact, the 2014 National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization reported that 58.9% of hospice patients received hospice care at home. In spite of their best efforts, however, many families are not able to achieve the goal of keeping their loved one at home. Statistics show, in fact, that while the majority of people indicate that they would prefer to die at home, only 25% end up doing so.
Many factors contribute to a family’s decision to move their loved one into a care center, but the fact that Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in America is one contributor. Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s takes some special considerations. For instance, an Alzheimer’s patient may panic if clothing choices become overwhelming. For this reason many caregiver’s have more success and provide more comfort by laying out the outfit or offering just two choices of shirts and pants. Recreating familiar scenes from the past can also help calm Alzheimer’s patients. Try as they might, however, families are not always able to care for their loved ones at home.
