The Dining Room is Now Closed

Be careful. If you don't leave the dining room when it closes, you might be headed for a dementia neighborhood. The dining room has certain hours. You just can't STAY there.

I tried not to bash the competition when R came in. His mom is at (that other community) where the family has been told that she has to move to their dementia neighborhood. She refused to leave the dining room at the end of the meal and made one too many scenes. He asked me if she had to leave the dining room at a certain time and there was only one answer - no. She could stay as long as she wanted to. I refrained from saying something like, "We don't do it like that here, " or something vaguely snide. I wanted to. He doesn't want mom to be taken to another floor for activities during the day, without access to her room - which is the way they do things there - in their dementia neighborhood. I refrained again from saying, "We don't do it like that here." I wanted to, but I didn't.

This just sounds like a case of someone else's rules not working for the resident and the resident loses. Administrators love to use words like, "outbursts", and "agitation", and "inappropriate". I don't know if these words were used, but I'll bet you one of the three were. Families don't know how to push back in ways that challenge the administrators to try other interventions.

Just be careful. I'm telling you - a few outbursts in the wrong place and you will wind up on the dementia floor.