My wife and I retired to the west coast 3 years ago from the east coast.
Just after we arrived, she began having memory problems and soon was
diagnosed with Alz and her doctor took away her driver's license. My wife
and I often had independent lives during the day as we both worked and then
were together the rest of the day. Now we are always together. Though we’ve
tried, we have not been able to make any friends here so we still know no
one. As I expected, people seem to avoid you when they notice the short term
memory loss and an inability to form sentences that relate to the topic
being discussed. My biggest problem is her expectation of me to be her
entertainment director every day. Each morning, with purse in hand, she says
to me "I'm ready, let's go". But most times there's nowhere to go. Her only
interests are mall shopping and eating out, which we do some of the time but
not every day. She buys sunglasses and purses most days we go out so we’ve
got quite a few. The next problem is loneliness. I have no one to talk with
and while I was working, my job required that I talk all day long.

To try and get some respite, I’ve tried leaving her at a day care facility
but she got so upset because nearly everyone was in the late stages of Alz
and this depressed her very much as it only served to remind her of what’s
ahead for her. So now I’m looking for a woman to provide in-home monitoring
for my wife for a few hours several times a week so that I can get some
relief and try to make friends doing what I've done in the past (tennis,
bridge, gym, volunteering). I don’t want to leave her alone as she has no
perception of time and often looks for me outside the house and cannot find
her way back home. Other than total short term memory loss and an inability
to hold a conversation, her difficulties are minimal and she is very alert.
The role I need of a monitor is similar to that of baby-sitting. I’ve
contacted a number of organizations but they don't offer this service and
can't offer any suggestions either. Instead, they provide someone who
provides
Light housecleaning
Personal hygiene/care
Medication preparation and delivery
Transportation to appointments
Assistance with meals and
Assistance with ambulation and transfers and other safety assurance.

But no one seems to provide just a monitor function. I told them the person
need not be qualified for nor be required to perform any of those other
functions. And they indicate there’s no guarantee the same person would be
available each time and sometimes could be a male, which I’m not happy
about. They suggest I look somewhere for a volunteer as their fees assume
all these roles are being performed since their people are highly qualified.
Life would have been so much simpler had we not retired. At caregiver’s
meetings, I found out that friends of the Alz patient will often help out by
taking their Alz friend out shopping, etc. and they suggest I do the same.
But we don’t have that advantage way out here as all our friends live 3000
miles away.

I'll keep making phone calls and hope I can find some help with enough
perseverence. For my own health, I've got to.