• Daughter2
    Member

    May 18, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    I live in RI and my father, age 93, lives in FL. He is presently in a nursing home there, in the dementia unit. I think I would like to move him to RI but don’t know how to go about doing that. Would he be able to fly? He’s medicated and sleeps alot. I really think they’re over medicating him. Has anyone out there had any experience moving a patient to another state? I don’t know how I could get him here other than flying. Thanks for your help.

  • TDubin
    Member

    May 29, 2009 at 4:08 am

    My grandpa had severe Alzheimer’s and we would take him on flights from LA to Florida for vacation – that is, before we realized he couldn’t do it anymore. Flying is extremely difficult if your father is the pugnacious Alzheimer’s type, like my grandfather was. If he’s prone to random outbursts, don’t take him flying. I’ve had police officers and flight attendants get mad at my grandpa for raising his voice and getting upset, when it’s just a factor of his disease.

    If your father isn’t prone to random outbursts, and if he does sleep a lot, you could try flying. Maybe if you know of a certain drug he takes that contributes to his excessive sleeping, you might want to give him it before hand. However, if I were you, I wouldn’t fly. Flying is very difficult to fly for a severely demented Alzheimer’s patient who’s mind isn’t fully functioning, but who can see and observe all around him. He gets confused and disoriented. I would suggest driving but making sure to stop frequently at hotels and rest. Driving too long in car rides also extremely disorients Alzheimer’s suffers. When my grandfather was in his worst stages, we could only drive say a half an hour before he believed we were taking him to “bad” places and he wanted to leave the car. Thus, drive in little intervals with frequent stops.

    Moving is going to take a while, and you’ll need to be extremely patient. Hope it goes well.

    Also, I’ve never used air ambulance, but it might be worth checking into. If you’re father needs oxygen on the plane, that can be arranged before hand with the flight company. They are pretty good about getting that ready.

    Good luck!