It happens faster than that. Once the elder parent is institutionalized, the family members are content that they have "done their duty" and are seldom seen again. This means the parent is at the mercy of the institutional care, which can be negligent...especially with no family member to watch out for the parent.
In many cases, the kind of care needed can be brought into the home, and the elder parent often is well-enough off to have a spacious home. It would make sense to bring the care to the patient instead of the patient to the care...but families choose instead to institutionalize the parent(s) so they can sell off their real estate.
This is not cynicism. This is simply observed reality. I wish it were not so. It is a grim lesson. We have allowed our generations to become depraved.
I went through everything with my mother who became demented over a period of about 15 years, and in the last three was on a fast downhill track because she could no longer keep a lid on her emotional issues. It's terrible when you have such a struggle to keep someone safe in her home that it's a relief when she has a fall and finally you can have the firemen take her away. She wasn't seriously damaged but there was no going back and she was so hostile to me she couldn't be in my house either. This sort of behavior can ruin a family trying to give care at home, not every demented person is passively slipping into vegetablehood. She wouldn't have hesitated to start fires or knife somone in her paranoia. Truly, God sent an angel in the form of the proprietess of a very small group home who took her in, calmed her down so we could visit again, and kept her going another two years with love and food in spite of undiagnosed and untreated pancreatic cancer. She was so successful she even got my mother praying and listening to the Bible again. I am a great fan of this type of care facility, and not of the bigger establishments at all, the bigger they are the less they can give this sort of care. Hospice services will provide professional help to make regular visits and deal with health issues, even a mobile dentist and xray. Also they provide supplies like Depends and bandages, whether in own home or institutions.
It happens faster than that. Once the elder parent is institutionalized, the family members are content that they have "done their duty" and are seldom seen again. This means the parent is at the mercy of the institutional care, which can be negligent...especially with no family member to watch out for the parent.
In many cases, the kind of care needed can be brought into the home, and the elder parent often is well-enough off to have a spacious home. It would make sense to bring the care to the patient instead of the patient to the care...but families choose instead to institutionalize the parent(s) so they can sell off their real estate.
This is not cynicism. This is simply observed reality. I wish it were not so. It is a grim lesson. We have allowed our generations to become depraved.
I went through everything with my mother who became demented over a period of about 15 years, and in the last three was on a fast downhill track because she could no longer keep a lid on her emotional issues. It's terrible when you have such a struggle to keep someone safe in her home that it's a relief when she has a fall and finally you can have the firemen take her away. She wasn't seriously damaged but there was no going back and she was so hostile to me she couldn't be in my house either. This sort of behavior can ruin a family trying to give care at home, not every demented person is passively slipping into vegetablehood. She wouldn't have hesitated to start fires or knife somone in her paranoia. Truly, God sent an angel in the form of the proprietess of a very small group home who took her in, calmed her down so we could visit again, and kept her going another two years with love and food in spite of undiagnosed and untreated pancreatic cancer. She was so successful she even got my mother praying and listening to the Bible again. I am a great fan of this type of care facility, and not of the bigger establishments at all, the bigger they are the less they can give this sort of care. Hospice services will provide professional help to make regular visits and deal with health issues, even a mobile dentist and xray. Also they provide supplies like Depends and bandages, whether in own home or institutions.
You lucked out. Thank God. It doesn't all mean gloom and doom, but the general run of the mill is not as we would hope it to be.