Many of our visits with mom in the nursing home included some sights we never expected to see, and some sounds we never expected to hear. Residents (or clients? ... what is the proper term these days?) strolled up and down the corridors constantly; maybe from boredom, or maybe for those who had been there long enough, it had become an unconscious habit; or perhaps even had become the only thing that still resided in their memory banks. Some mumbled unintelligible phrases; others grunted in regular intervals, and still others spoke with invisible companions in seemingly intelligent conversation. One man, installed in a room two doors down the hall was constantly yelling out for someone, and we took it as a family member, only to discover later, it was his beloved cat. In the beginning, that never failed to startle us (my mom included) because it was the name of my granddaughter, who (on her first visit) was rather taken aback, thinking the poor man was calling her.
Occasionally, the sounds of spats and arguments would echo up the halls, and although those tended to end fairly quickly, my mother would often holler out for them to be quiet. Well, in not quite those words, usually it came out as "oh shut up!" That's one thing mom was lacking during her time in the nursing home - her sense of propriety seemed to go "out the window" along with her memory.
From time-to-time, some of these residents would wander up past the open door of my mother's room, mostly unclothed. We watched one day as a man, clad only in a woman's pink blouse, walked past heading towards the common room, and in a short while, walked back towards his room, wearing no pink blouse, but a pair of women's panties instead. It was marginally better than the pink blouse. My mother would almost always comment about these wanderers - she wasn't terribly happy about them wearing no clothes at all (she thought it was "shameful"), and was even less impressed when they tried to come into her room, shooing them away with a wave of her hands and uttering "shoo, shoo, go away now", as if she were speaking to a puppy.
For our parts, I must admit we were startled to see bare seniors in the public parts of the building. Sadder by far, was the fact that sometimes it took a while for anyone in charge of the floor to notice, or to guide them back to their rooms and help them dress. It's just so disheartening - these were people who, in their prime, cared about their appearance, and the proprieties of life and would have been devastated to know what had happened to them.
This was one of things that concerned me, not because it was actually hurting anyone else, but ... well, I didn't want my mother's dignity compromised any more than it already was by her disease, or by having to live in a restrictive situation like she was. I didn't want to find my mother some day wandering the halls without her clothing, or in clothing with food on them, or her hair standing up on her head ...
There really was only one way to deal with that, to make sure that she didn't suffer this too. I spent most days at the nursing home with her, and in between the times I was there, one of my daughter's was with her. There were no days when she was left to her own devices entirely, but spending the majority of my day with her at the nursing home was almost as daunting as looking after her myself, although there was relief in the form of free nights - nights to sleep without fear for her safety ... well, at least for a little while.