Care and support - Housing options - Deciding to move into a long-term care home and choosing a home

If you are a person with dementia and are worried about staying in your home, despite all of yours and your family member’s efforts to ensure that safety measures are in place you may want to consider moving into a long term care home. Some signs to watch out for include:

• Fires from cooking or smoking
• Falling when you are alone
• Getting lost
• Taking your medications incorrectly
• Physically hurting others
• Not eating or drinking when you should
• Becoming socially isolated, feeling more forgetful and frightened
• Having symptoms that are difficult to manage, like problems with bowel or bladder control, or diabetes

If you are experiencing some of these warning signs or risks, you might want to talk to a care partner or family member about increasing community supports at home, or your long term care home options.

Also, see the Safety section of this website for how to stay safe in your home and in the community and review the Community Supports and Services section to ensure that you are accessing all the community supports that are available to you.

Source: The information above was adapted with permission from Ward- Moser, S. (2009). Moving to a Home?...Next Month?...When is it Time?, in Living with Dementia: a Guidebook for Families. Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams (MICT).

As a care partner, there are certain signs you can look out for as you make decisions with your family member or friend. If your family member needs more help with daily tasks and/or is becoming a risk to themselves because of accidents, taking medication incorrectly, or getting lost outside, it might be time for you both to consider a long term care home option. This would also be a good time to consider how you are feeling as a care partner. Questions to ask yourself include:

• Can any of the extra care required be addressed with community supports or services?
• Can any of the risks my family member poses to themselves be reduced with a community support or service?
• How physically well am I?
• Am I showing signs of depression (feeling helpless and hopeless; losing interest in activities; experiencing changes in appetite or weight; experiencing changes in sleeping patterns; feeling angry or irritable; having no energy; engaging in self-loathing; engaging in reckless behaviours; having problems concentrating; experiencing unexpected aches and pains)?
• Has my health changed over the past few months?
• Are the legal decision makers and my family in agreement with the long term home care placement options?
• If needed, is my family member or the family able to pay for additional community services or supports?
• Is my family member's house suitable to their physical abilities?
• Is the house accessible?
• Is there a crisis plan or back up plan in place for my family member?

If these questions raise any worrying issues for you, it might be time to have a conversation with your family and your health care professional about living options for the person with dementia who you care for.

The move to a long term care home is always a better experience when the person with dementia is involved in the decision making process. This may not always be possible but family care partners should try their best to include the person with dementia in the process. Ensuring the person with dementia is supported emotionally throughout this process is also important.

Be aware that you will need to ensure that all of the proper legal documents are in place to have conversations with other health professionals about the care of your family member living with dementia (see Planning ahead section).