Safety is a fleeting thing and we don’t feel quite as safe as we did, but at the same time the cause of our feelings is a victim of the same disease that brought us here. Such is life in a memory care unit.
ONE OF THE things we wanted most when we moved Connie into a memory care unit in January of 2024 was for her to be safe, and for us to believe she was safe.
That’s been eroded a bit, and it’s not really anyone’s fault and I am not sure anything can be done about it.
A few months ago a new resident moved in. It was clear she was different. Her dementia manifested itself in searching and wandering. It seems she is searching for both a place and a person and so she wanders the unit at all hours, walking into other residents’ rooms, banging on doors.
There already was one woman in the unit who did that sporadically, always with a smile on her face and we pretty much dismissed it or got used to it. This is different. The woman comes to doors at all hours. Sometimes, when I am there for the evening, she will come to Connie’s door several times. When turned away she gets angry.
It has made Connie anxious. She worries about the woman coming in when she is alone. We don’t know if, when we confront her and ask her to leave, she will someday react violently.
We have taken to locking the door when Connie is inside, but sometimes when she is alone, she forgets. One time she awoke to find the woman standing over her bed. Connie cannot manage a key so when she goes out of her room, the door is unlocked.
One recent night Connie was in a friend’s unit, and I took bird seed from her cabinet and went outside to fill the feeders by her window. I looked through the window and saw The Wanderer inside, moving things on Connie’s desk. She then went to her closet. I rapped on the window and motioned her to leave. She came over and lowered the shade.
When I went in, I told her she had to leave. She said “Is she here?” then asked “where do I go.”
It is sad. I am filled with sympathy and understanding, but on the other hand I am my wife’s advocate. The Wanderer has significantly changed the atmosphere in the unit. Other families, I know, are upset. Management has said nothing can be done about it, that everyone’s dementia is different and this is hers. Just lock the doors…
But, as much as I understand I am angry. I truly feel the anxiety that has grown in Connie since The Wanderer has arrived has hastened her declined. I want her to be safe. But now, for the first time since we moved in, I don’t trust that she is in a safe place. I worry about her.
But, I suppose, such is life in memory care. This disease is brutal and it has brutalized the Wanderer and because it has, Connie feels less safe and I worry about her. Maybe it is just another learning, about how one person can change a community, not always for the better.
Rich Heiland, has been a reporter, editor, publisher/general manager at daily papers in Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and New Hampshire. He was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Xenia Daily (OH) Daily Gazette, a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year. Since 1995 he has operated an international consulting, public speaking and training business specializing in customer service, general management, leadership and staff development with major corporations, organizations, and government. Semi-retired, he and his wife live in West Chester, PA. He can be reached at [email protected].