Care Home swaps residents cat for a toy

[Catherine]

People do not understand dementia. They think the mind is all or nothing. The woman may have serious memory problems, but she knows who she is and who her cat is. Messing with her by lying about taking the cat for a bath was not appropriate. Giving the cat away was theft.  I am really glad the son got the cat back. At least she can visit the cat at her son's place when she visits him.

Seriously though, staff had no right to take anything from her room without the family's permission. What they did was theft.
Vulnerable people do very poorly in nursing homes. I think they are calling them assisted living homes. I am not sure people are getting the assistance they need to live happily in their remaining years.

I call it the case of the disappearing allergies. Whenever there is money involved the allergies disappear. When you dropped the price, suddenly her allergy to smoke disappeared.

People often claim allergies when they don't have allergies. They have some vague reaction and they decide it is an allergy to something. I have clients with Epi-Pens(prescribed by a doctor) to use in case of an allergic reaction, even though they don't actually have an allergy. If you can eat peanut butter then you don't have a peanut allergy. 

Many people claim allergies to cats. I wonder about the care home staff. If there had been money in it for her would she have been okay.