My 82 yo mother with CHF and dementia was sent from hospital to nursing home for rehab after having pneumonia in December. Due to her declining health and mental state we decided it was necessary for her to stay in the memory care unit of the facility.
Since she doesn’t have any assets we applied for Medicaid coverage once her 21 days of Medicare coverage were over. She has now been moved to a much smaller shared room and is in the memory care area of the facility.
Since this change her health has declined, she is not helped into clean clothes and is left to lay in the bed all day. Is this normal care? I feel like it borders on neglect but am not sure if I am just expecting too much.
Would love to know what others have experienced with a loved one on Medicaid in a skilled nursing home. Thanks in advance.
To answer some of your questions, she is sick in that she has vascular dementia and needs to use a walker to walk. She is weak from recovering from pneumonia and they cut off her physical therapy when her 21 Medicare days ran out. But no, she is not so sick that she should be laying in bed in dirty clothes all day. So far she has worn the same clothes for 3 days that I know of. (I live 2 hours away but my SIL is local and visits almost daily).
Apparently the staff is asking her if she wants to change clothes or go to the dining room to eat and she tells them she doesn’t want to. Not in an argumentative way, just like nah, not today.
She has become increasingly lazy and wanting to be waited on hand and foot since being in NH. Narcissism coming out I guess. We have told the staff to tell her she is changing clothes now or going to dining room because it is just not good for her to lay in bed day after day and there is also some depression involved with her attitude. I just feel like it is the staffs responsibility to care for her as with dementia she is unable to make proper decisions for her own care.
I am going to request a meeting with the care team when I go in tomorrow.
It just really seems like the care she is receiving has changed considerably since she moved from the rehab side of the facility to long term care.
Thanks again everyone you guys are true earth angels !
Usually when there’s a rehab to NH transfer, a couple of weeks of PT is ordered to get a baseline. So I would try to get her back into a couple of weeks of PT...that will get her bum out of bed.
Also, Double rooms are most common...at Moms they keep the couple of private rooms available for sick residents who must be quarantined for some reason, or to give families some privacy near end of life. Try not to get too hung up on the shared room, it’s usually not a bad thing.