Reporter Louis Theroux drops in at a traumatic time for new residents and their
families at the Beatitudes Senior Living Campus, in Arizona.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and anwer the questions belowl
1. What problem is Janet Cottrell having?
2. How long has she been staying at Beatitudes?
3. Why did the family take the decision to send her to the retirement centre?
4. Does Janet know that she's going to stay at Beatitudes for ever?
5. What do the staff tell residents at Beautitudes all day long?
My journey began here, at Beatitudes, a retirement community with a specialist unit for people with dementia.
I don't know where she is, if she's OK.
A resident on the second floor, called Janet Cottrell, had seen an intruder.
Janet, who was yelling at you?
The woman that was in here. She was climbing in her pyjamas and going... She was in that room. I don't know where she could have gone so fast.
Well, if you see her again, let her know, or you can push your button.
Dawn Grant is in charge of the unit.
Do you think that was a hallucination?
I do believe so.
Why could it not be a real person?
I don't have any other small females, skinny, running round in their jammies right now. Another resident. And they can't move that fast, either. So it's probably a hallucination. Well, it is a hallucination.
Janet was a new arrival at Beatitudes. Her daughter, Nancy, came to see how she was settling in.
Do you like the chair, Mom?
Pardon?
Do you like the chair?
Do I like the chair? Yes, very much so.
So your mum just moved in yesterday, is that right?
Yes.
And how did that go?
It was pretty emotional. In the morning it was very, very difficult when we told her she was coming.
How did you get to the point of feeling she needed to be here?
She walked away from the house one day, and she didn't know where she was, and nobody knew where she was, so that was the end of my being able to take care of her, because I couldn't keep her safe anymore.
Course, I keep thinking, you know, she likes to go out a lot, but we aren't allowed to go out. We don't have a car.
Once your car was taken away, was that quite a big thing for you?
It was terrible, and it still is. And Nancy says I cannot get my car back.
My mom, I hope, knows that I love her very much, and that the reason that I'm doing these things is to keep her safe, and I hope she remembers that.
See, if you just leave me alone, I do all good things by myself.
Yeah.
At any point did you kind of say to Janet, ‘This is basically where you'll be living now’?
Not yesterday before we left, no. It wasn’t until… And we really actually haven't said that, I've not said that to her at all.
Do not talk about her as though she's not in the room.
OK.
Include her in, or don't have a conversation in front of her.
Yeah.
She's not saying, ‘When can I go home?’, or anything?
She's not, but she is under the impression she's here temporarily.
She is, but so is Sonja, her roommate.
Right, and half of the people here.
Yeah, they all think they're going.
They do?
It's just such a transition to take them from what they're so used to, to putting them in a new setting.
It's OK to tell...I guess they'd be white lies, is that the right term?
Yes. We do it all the time.
Yeah, we tell white lies all day long here, all day.
Key:
1 She says she's seen an intruder
2 Just one day
3 They can't look after her. One day she walked away from the house and she didn't know where she was.
4 No, they haven't told her yet.
5 (White) lies
