How I got my independent and help-rejecting mother into memory care
Hello all! This community has been such a great resource for me in my family's dementia journey, so I wanted to share a snippet of our story. I hope it will help anyone in a similar situation. This took literal years of planning and significant effort on mine and my cousin’s part, so here is our story warts and all!
A little bit of background
my mother “Gloria” is a retired nurse, 74 years old, and stage 4 Alzheimer's. I live in CA, she and the rest of my family live in FL. She's lived alone since 2009 and hasn't worked since 2010 when she was fired for what we now believe was the beginning of her cognitive decline. All her life, her identity has centered around being decisive and independent both at work and at home, so when the symptoms started to kick in over the last 10-15 years it was really difficult for the people around her to support her. She's highly intelligent but also very stubborn. Even before the anosognosia (symptom blindness) set in, she would adamantly deny that anything was wrong. My cousin “Beth” and I started keeping an eye on her from afar until she started getting scammed out of her finances in 2022. We started with becoming her financial POA at that time and in 2025 things had deteriorated to the point we went through the legal process to become her co-guardians (co-conservators depending on which state you're in). She was deemed 100% incapacitated (it really showed why, too) and we were given full control over everything financial, medical, where she lived, whether she drove/voted/married, etc. Now that we had this control, we could start planning for residential care for her.
“We can't admit your mom if she's an elopement or wandering risk”
If you've tried to get your LO into residential care before, you've probably been told by the facility that they can't take/keep them if they're an elopement or wandering risk, even if it's for memory care which is locked. Gloria would literally rather die than go into any kind of residential facility. She would only accept moving in with family, and was even against home nursing. Unfortunately for Beth and my situation, we couldn't move her in with us. She refused to come to CA (“people in CA are so weird” ma'am you live in FL, the mecca of weird people but ok LOL) until this year when the Alzheimer's delusions started and honestly she needed a higher level of support than what Beth or I could provide. Beth and I looked around, called places, toured places, and found the best fit for her that she could afford. Any mention of a “facility” or home nursing was always met with “no I'm not there yet,” even when she definitely was "there." In the beginning we could appeal to her need for logic and evidence and get her to come around and see she wasn't doing ok. She would agree to try home nursing, at one point even went to tour the facility we picked out, but she would forget the whole convo and we'd be right back where we started. It was “I'm not there yet”x1000. By 2026, all of her logic and ability to accept evidence was totally gone, she was incredibly delusional, and Beth was now needing to drive her everywhere, but we still needed her to willingly walk into memory care and not constantly try to escape. We believed (or at least hoped) she would settle and stay once she was admitted, but our guardianship status didn't matter if she refused to be there from the get-go. She was starting to have strong persecutory delusions about Beth who was honestly her primary caregiver since I lived so far away, which signaled to us this needed to happen asap. Side note, people with dementia-related delusions usually have persecutory delusions about the people who help them the most, so double props to Beth and you if you're experiencing this! After looking through YouTube videos and this subreddit, we were able to hatch a plan that I knew would work.
The plan and execution:
Gloria prided herself on being independent, self-sufficient, and knowing her body. She had high blood pressure and trusted her primary care doctor “Dr G” 100%. She met this Dr 30 years ago in a hospital they both worked at and he's been her Dr ever since. I knew she *would* accept doing a short term/rehab stay for medical reasons if he ordered it but *would not* accept a long term stay for cognitive reasons. The plan was to lie, tell her that Dr. G called me and said her BP med wasn't doing what it was supposed to anymore, and wanted her to swap to a new med. This plan fully involved catering to her nurse brain while focusing on easing anxiety rather than appealing to logic. Since it's a new class of medication and she's been on her current meds for so long + her age, he wanted her to be monitored for a couple weeks during the transition. All of which was total bullshit but she would consider it believable. I would specifically avoid telling her a specific timeframe for this stay, not that she was oriented to time enough to track it.
While in real life he was unfortunately staying hands-off the dementia topics, he was willing to work with us and complete the paperwork for the facility we picked out. He also agreed to order a 2-week supply of Ativan for her to help with the transition. Beth and I were able to time getting Gloria's routine blood work and check up with a room opening up and started planting little seeds to her that her Dr was talking about possibly changing some medications pending BW results.
We worked with the facility director on a Monday move in day and planned for me to fly in Saturday to help get her room set up and ready for her move in. She had her blood work done earlier in the week. She had an appointment with him the month prior for a check up. Beth took her to the facility for their admission assessment a week after her appointment because “Dr G wants you to get a neurology follow up and you hated the other neurologist (true) so this is an alternative.” Friday I called and broke the news to her. I prepped ahead of time and looked up which labs would correlate with hypertension and looked up the name of a new BP meds in case she asked.
Her initial response: “What? That's ridiculous. Why didn't he call me?”
Me: “He said he couldn't reach you so he called me. I'm flying in Sunday to help see what's going on”
“Ok let me mark on the calendar when to expect you.”
She was mostly angry from shock, but didn't question anything else. All according to plan.
I flew in Saturday night and stayed with Beth. Sunday we met with the facility staff and finalized all the details of how Gloria would be brought in and we set up her room ahead of time. We bought her new bedding, set up furniture for her, decorated, etc. She called me and forgot I was even flying in, but vaguely remembered Dr. G wanted her to stay somewhere. It was then she asked how long she'd be there and what medication he wanted her to swap to. I told her the name of the medication I googled ahead of time, but honestly it was more meaningful to her nurse brain that “it's a new class of medication.” For length of her stay, it was a mistake to say for a couple of weeks. She heard “a couple weeks” and the response was always anxiety. Luckily with her short term memory loss I got several re-tries. I swapped to “just long enough to see if this new med will work.” Her nurse brain accepted that and was more meaningful to her. She was much calmer on the second phone call than she was when I first broke the news, and honestly may have forgotten I was the one who told her the first time. She still never questioned it, but believed Dr G was only doing this because of Beth “trying to have her committed.” I told her I would be going with her to make sure it was only a short stay and advocate for her.
MOVE IN DAY:
Monday morning Beth dropped me off at Gloria's house ~1 hour before we were scheduled to bring her to the facility to help ease her anxiety and get her packed. Beth would be going to the facility to finish setting up furniture from the day before (it takes way longer than you'd think it does). I'm not exaggerating when I say her short term memory loss was on an anxiety-fueled 2 min loop. I put on my best bullshit-your-parent face (only-children especially know what I'm talking about) and just kept reassuring and validating her.
“Yes ma'am you'll only be staying for a short while. You only need a little suitcase. I'll be watching your house until you get back. I'm here to make sure it's only a short stay. I'm sorry you're caught up in drama with Beth. Oh I've never heard this story before, what happened??” Every 2 minutes. I knew the plan was working when she was calm and her delusions and confabulations were working in our favor.
“Did I tell you Dr. G told me he would drop me as a patient if I didn't do this?? He knows I've had bad reactions to blood pressure meds before and isn't playing around.” If I could have broken character, my face would have been that devious smile the Grinch does in the original movie. “Oh wow! No, that's bananas, I didn't know that.” I even lied and told her I had to do the same kind of stay when my own medical meds stopped working just for more normalization.
Beth picked us up and drove us to the facility. Gloria clearly saw the road sign for the facility and recognized it. The 2 minute loop picked up, “how long am I staying?” I just repeated the same line, “just long enough to make sure the new med is working-” Then I started tagging on the bad-reaction nugget she gave me before “-and make sure you don't have a bad reaction like in your history.” She accepted this; "it's true I've had bad reactions before." Part of me was shocked how well she was accepting this based on years of immediate refusal of anything resembling a “nursing home.” The staff met us at the back door closest to the memory care unit so she doesn't see the ~*MEMORY CARE*~ signs normally seen via the main entrance in the facility. The staff were willing to work with us and go along with our story. She'd ask them and me how long she was staying, it was just for med monitoring right, etc. The staff all went along with it. We got her to her room which Beth and I pretended we'd never seen before and definitely didn't decorate specifically to her tastes. We got her settled into her room and realized she didn't pack any undergarments. The staff were truly wonderful and introduced themselves, offered her coffee and pie from lunch, and sat her down to enjoy those while they got her her own room key. We told her we'd go and get her undergarments and slipped back out the back door.
It's been a few days since my extremely independent and help-rejecting mother has finally been in a memory care facility and hasn't tried to elope or escape once. The staff have been able to redirect her, she's been interacting with the other residents, and she's finally in an environment with other people, taking her meds, and eating regularly. For a time I never thought this would happen, so if you're reading this and thinking some part may work for your LO, please take our experience and use it to help your own LO. I'd also be more than happy to answer questions that may help. Cheers <3