Sustaining Elder Care – January 2026

We moved my father to a new memory care place in early November, and we are just now getting his medical care transitioned to a new provider (since the new place is out of range from the previous one). It has been harder than we expected and there could be other challenges we just haven’t uncovered yet.

He is still having some difficulty finding his way around in the new place without assistance. The size of the place, his worsening eyesight, and cognitive ups/downs are all contributing to our observations and reports from staff of almost daily incidents – him thinking someone else’s apartment is his, him losing the key fob to get into his room, and him saying that he can’t find his room.

One of my sisters noticed that he couldn’t get his belt buckle open…and closed again. Maybe it was threaded around his jeans the wrong way? I hope that was the explanation since, if it is not – we may be approaching a time when he will need assistance in the bathroom. A year or so ago one of my sisters bought him some pull-on pants that did not require a belt – but he didn’t like them at all. He likes his jeans with a belt and a button front shirt (short sleeves for summer and long sleeves for winter)!

His decline – mental and physical – is obvious…but not predictable. There are times that he seems to remember more but those times are happening less often. The decline of his eyesight is related. If he could see better, perhaps he would not get lost so easily even though his short-term memory has not been reliable for quite some time so the move to a new environment has been hard for him.

It is taking more effort for me to stick with my strategy of accepting him as he is in the moments when I am with him….try to encourage him to move about and talk. In the back of my mind when I plan my monthly road trips to visit him, I always think about making the best of the visit because it might be the last one.