Spiritual Care for Elderly Relative with Alzheimer's

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silicasandra

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Hi CAF! It’s been a while but I’m glad to be back. 🙂

Here is the situation: My husband’s grandmother has Alzheimer’s and currently lives in a Lutheran assisted living facility. They provide excellent care for her. DH’s mom has power of attorney (she is the oldest of three children) and is no longer a practicing Catholic (she and my FIL, who is not Catholic, now attend non-denominational services.) Her two brothers do help out caring for their mom but the bulk of the work is definitely done by my mother-in-law. They are nominal Catholics.

DH and I have been wondering about a few things regarding “spiritual care,” if you will, for his grandma. She is definitely approaching the final stages of the disease and we are concerned about her getting the Sacraments, especially Anointing of the Sick. I am not sure if the assisted living facility has Mass or not (MIL seems to think it does as she has attended the on-campus worship services with DH’s grandma, but from her description it sounds like Lutheran liturgy and not the Mass.) DH’s grandma no longer has the ability to reason so I know it is not sinful that she is missing Mass, for example, and she probably wouldn’t be able to make a confession anymore. Still, we think as she approaches the end of her life she needs all the graces she can get, and we are concerned that she will not have the opportunity for some of them simply because her caregivers don’t think about them.

Do any of you have suggestions on how we (more specifically, my husband, since it is his grandma and I don’t want to meddle unnecessarily in his relatives’ affairs) can approach this topic tactfully with his mother? She is a kind and generous woman (I really like having her for a MIL), but her knowledge of Catholic theology is really limited and in her fervor for her new nondenominational “church” we are concerned she might ignore our request that her mother receive the sacraments. My husband is the only practicing Catholic left in all of his family (including extended, and he is an only child), and so he feels that this is his responsibility.

(We are also concerned about funeral arrangements etc, but we think that is more likely to have been addressed in her will. We are also hoping that if we make some headway with this that it might be easier to have that conversation later if we need to.)

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated, including ideas on what we could do for DH’s grandma that we may not have thought of. :o Thank you!
 
When the subject of Granny comes up, I would say something like this:

“The other day I realized that Granny would like to get Anointing of the Sick. Do you think we could arrange that?”

Or:

“Granny would probably want to get Last Rites before she passes. Does the facility know she’d want that?”

If you make it about what Granny would want and volunteer to arrange whatever needs to be done, then she’s more likely to be receptive.

Good luck! I’ll pray for you!
 
Simply contact the local Catholic priest where your grandmother lives, inform him of her name and room number and that she has Alzheimer’s. He will do the rest-- he will visit her and give her the sacraments if it is appropriate.
 
1ke said:
Simply contact the local Catholic priest where your grandmother lives, inform him of her name and room number and that she has Alzheimer’s. He will do the rest-- he will visit her and give her the sacraments if it is appropriate.
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👍👍

Another option might be to contact the facility directly and ask to speak to the chaplain. While they probably don’t have one on staff, they will likely have a number since you say it is a Lutheran facility.
That person would likely be able to help as I am sure they deal with this sort of thing regularly. They very likely know the various local clergy, including the nearby parish priests and deacons etc…

Finally - I am sorry to hear about your grandmother’s condition and hope that God will keep the family strong and at peace through all of this. It is an ordeal, but also a wonderful opportunity for graces.

Peace
James
 
Was Grandma attending Mass before she got Alzheimers? Did she have a parish priest? If so, you could contact him or the parish and ask him to visit her.

It sounds as though Anointing may be the only sacrament appropriate. She may be able to receive it now. You don’t have to wait until death is imminent. If she can receive Holy Communion, there are usually priests or EMHC’s who take it to nursing homes.

Regarding funeral/burial arrangements, this is frequently NOT addressed in wills. The family should discuss this now. I have known of Catholics with non-Catholic children who were denied a Catholic funeral because the adult child in charge wanted to do things his own way.

If you are a Catholic, make it clear to everyone that you want a Catholic funeral.
 
I’m sorry for what your family is going through-but rest assured your grandma is more blessed than you know by carrying such a burden… several others have shared that giving her priest or your priest her information- that he will visit her-that’s really all that should be necessary…and also she is probably not the only catholic resident so the desk may have priests you can contact if yours are not available… whatever happens, or whatever funeral sendoff she has under the circumstances- trust she is already in God’s hands… and He will be there for her with arms wide open when she passes…Do what you can… let God handle the details… and be at peace with this
 
The next time you visit her, you can even casually ask an aide or worker if a Catholic priest visits this facility. If so, confirm that your husband’s grandmother is on the list to receive a visit. If not, I will echo what others have said to contact her own pastor or the pastor of the geographical parish of the facility to arrange a visit. I don’t see a reason why your husband would have to get permission from his mother to do this. It’s just arraigning someone to visit her. If it happens to come up with your DH’s mother, he can just say he thought she might like a visit from a priest.

Is your grandmother able to communicate a little bit? If you ask her, “Do you want to see the priest?” Would she be able to answer you? When I worked at a nursing home, I saw people who had very little mental function left, could not hold a conversation or eat from a plate. But they could perfectly give the verbal responses during Mass. When the priest or EMHC held up a Host and said, “Body of Christ,” they would say “Amen” and open their mouth reverently. Some people who were unable to say these responses found peace in simply holding a Rosary in their hand, or looking at a Crucifix. One of the beauties of our Catholic faith is that we can reach it from so many angles, that when we loose one faculty (or many), we can try to connect through others.

This is truly a Cross for your grandmother and your whole family.
 
OP checking back in. 🙂

Thanks to everyone on suggestions of how we could do this. We didn’t plan on asking my MIL to actually contact a priest or anything (we could do that ourselves), but we are concerned that we will be seen as going behind her back or something. As I said in the OP, I really like my MIL, but we also know that there is a strong possibility, depending on how we approach this topic with her (or don’t approach and just do), that we will be accused of trying to somehow “take over” or think that we know better than her how to care for her mother. And if she does end up thinking that, then the whole family will hear about it. :rolleyes:

I like SJG1759’s suggestion of framing it in terms of what DH’s grandma would want. While I didn’t know her before the onset of the disease, I knew her back when she was a lot more capable and she has always been a very devout lady. For a long time even when she couldn’t remember her children’s names she had no problem saying her rosary every day, and after she lost the ability to do it independently she could still follow along with someone else leading. She gets a lot of comfort from watching Mass and prayers on EWTN although I’m not sure anymore how much she “gets it” - I think the familiarity is important to her. She can respond to simple questions so I think hannajomar’s question would be a good one to ask her. I think she would understand well enough if we asked her, and if a priest were to come see her I think she would know who he was (or what, at least. :))

I guess the course of action we may take is telling my MIL that we think her mother would want to receive the Sacraments, and that we can arrange for that to happen so it’s not something extra she needs to be responsible for. If she doesn’t respond well, we might just do it anyway if it’s something we can do. 🤷

I am surprised, a little, that we could (apparently) just call up the facility and say - “Hey you, this resident is Catholic - take my word for it - have a priest go visit her.” Not that we would say it this way, but KWIM? :o I guess I am also a little surprised that for something like this we wouldn’t have to go through my MIL since she is the one who has all the authority to make decisions regarding her mother’s care. Besides just family dynamics, we figured it might just have to go through her.

Anyway, if this whole thing gets sorted out with a minimum of drama, we might progress to inquiring about funeral arrangements. DH’s grandma planned ahead for a lot of things (she got a long-term care policy a long time ago that is now covering all of her medical expenses, for instance) and we know that she has either prepaid or has money set aside already for her funeral expenses. I wouldn’t be surprised if her will included instructions for a burial Mass at her home parish, but we would like to check that and at least get it on the radar since her kids may not think of it.

Again, thanks everyone!🙂
 
silicasandra,

Sounds like you have a good handle on things.

I hope we did not come off as suggesting that you go behind anyone’s back. It is always best to keep these things out in the open if at all possible.
I think we (at least I) was mainly just addressing possible ways to make contact with a local priest/parish and that the facility likely has that information on hand and can help you out.

Hope everything goes smoothly…the most important thing is that everything be done to make the end of her life as holy, peaceful, familiar and pleasant as possible.

Peace
James
 
silicasandra… just ask at the nursing home what religious affiliation they put down for grandma-if any…you said it was Lutheran based… all Good Samaritan nursing homes are Lutheran affiliates- but it has nothing to do with personal affiliation and Priests visit their parishioners regularly- even mass is held there at the GS nursing homes at least once a week for those who are more mobile…so if yours is not a Good Sam…it may still operate under those guidelines… knowing her faith was/is as important to her as you have said… it would seem odd her daughter wouldn’t want to comply with whatever would make her mother more at peace with this…I don’t know why it strikes you as going behind your MIL’s back by showing this concern-but that’s between all of you-…I would hope everyone would put the grandmother and what she would want ahead of any personal drama- you and your husband should find out all the facts and present it to his mother- then let God handle the details…and may the angels guide her safely home:heaven:
 
Monicad said:
God bless you for your concern, what a beautiful thing! I hope and pray that someone is so caring about my spiritual welfare if I were in a similiar condition, what a blessing you are!

I beleive another approach would be to tell your mother in law that this is something you want to do WITH your grandmother as something special. So you would find out the priests schedule, then make it a point to go and visit at the same time. You can frame this in such a way that it meant a lot for your husband to be with his grandmother when she received a blessing and he took time to pray with her. After you can have a little treat with her. Perhaps if you treated this more like something special you want to do WITH grandma it might come across less like something you are doing TO her and thus might not offend people if they are sensitive in this area. Just my two cents, God bless you.
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Thank you! This is a great idea. 🙂
 
Hi everybody, just posting an update.

So DH brought it up with his mom. His mom seemed really confused by his suggestion that his grandma be visited by a priest. I wasn’t there (trying to be supportive of DH but also not butt into his family affairs) but apparently she went on about how the priest of her parish, where she had been an active volunteer, had died, so “I don’t really see the point.” (Not surprising, as MIL left the Church and the sacraments, so her frame of reference is entirely based on her friendship with her “pastor.” In MIL’s mind, if her mother doesn’t know or remember the priest, then there is nothing he can offer her. Of course, we know differently. :))

So it looks like the arrangements are up to us for that part as MIL doesn’t understand why we want it, but she didn’t say anything about trying to stop us, etc. DH did find out that his grandma’s funeral has been prepaid and that she will have a funeral Mass at her home parish. So that is not a fight we will have to have, thankfully.
 
silicasandra said:
Hi everybody, just posting an update.

So DH brought it up with his mom. His mom seemed really confused by his suggestion that his grandma be visited by a priest. I wasn’t there (trying to be supportive of DH but also not butt into his family affairs) but apparently she went on about how the priest of her parish, where she had been an active volunteer, had died, so “I don’t really see the point.” (Not surprising, as MIL left the Church and the sacraments, so her frame of reference is entirely based on her friendship with her “pastor.” In MIL’s mind, if her mother doesn’t know or remember the priest, then there is nothing he can offer her. Of course, we know differently. :))

So it looks like the arrangements are up to us for that part as MIL doesn’t understand why we want it, but she didn’t say anything about trying to stop us, etc. DH did find out that his grandma’s funeral has been prepaid and that she will have a funeral Mass at her home parish. So that is not a fight we will have to have, thankfully.
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Good to hear that you have the situation somewhat clarified. Hope you will be able to get things squared away quickly.

Peace
James
 
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