What Possessions to Bring to a Nursing Home for Your Loved One

I had just started a new job as a nursing home social service assistant. I walked into the office, which I shared the social service director, and quickly started organizing my desk. After I finished putting away my pens and setting up my file drawer, I turned to a desk behind me and opened a drawer.

"What's this?" I screamed very loudly, while peering into a drawer jammed packed with dentures. These were not new, but used dentures, that had previously been in someone's mouth.

My supervisor looked over at me and shrugged. She wasn't sure why they were there either, but gave me permission to dispose of them, since they were not marked and obviously were not interchangeable. Before I could accomplish that, a man appeared in the office, asking if we had any dentures we could give him. That seemed a little strange, but it turned out that he made Kachina dolls and liked to use dentures to make them look like they had real teeth. It was a win-win situation; he would take the dentures and give them a happy home and I could have my desk drawer back.

That was the start of my 8-year battle with dentures taking up residence in my desk drawer. Assorted glasses, watches, and necklaces would often join them, but dentures were the worst. You have to understand that the residents in nursing homes often lose things. It is the job of the Social Service Department to make out what is called a "Missing Property Report" and try to locate those items that are missing. Often it is a piece of clothing, or a personal blanket that got lost in the laundry. If we are unable to locate it in a reasonable period of time, the resident or family member can request reimbursement for that item, and the Social Service Department will facilitate that request.

All efforts are made to get personal items marked upon admission, so if a denture or a pair of glasses ends up in the kitchen on a meal tray, and if the kitchen staff are alert and spot them hiding in a napkin, they return them to us and we can cheerfully re-unite them with their owners. This is very common among the confused residents who wander and leave their dentures, hearing aids, or glasses behind. But it can also happen to the alert residents too, as we all know from the various things that go missing in our own homes.

But back to dentures, since that is our topic for today. The loss of dentures is a big issue in a nursing home, because without dentures the resident may not be able to chew and need to be placed on a puree diet. Puree diets are not as unappetizing as you might think, as I have personally quality checked them myself, but still the consistency does leave something to be desired. So one of the results of a missing denture could be weight loss, which is severely frowned upon by state licensing agencies, families, and naturally, the staff as well.

It is the social service department that is designated to search for the missing item. Often, while searching, we find orphan dentures. No one claims them, the one that was found does not match the mouth of the person who is missing a denture, and no one has reported any other missing dentures. So what is a good social worker to do (I swear, they did not cover this in Social Work school!). You guessed it, we put them in a drawer and wait to see if anyone reports them missing.

Fortunately, I quickly became wise to the way dentures seemed to multiply overnight, so I tried to keep them only for a short time before disposing of them. Still, there was a time or two that I had just thrown a denture away, only to find out that Mrs. X had been missing hers for quite some time, but somehow this message had never made it to Social Services. Everyone else in the building had been aware of it, but since they hadn't followed protocol and filled out the proper paperwork, we didn't find out until the deed was done. This would then lead to an unhappy administration that would have to authorize payment for a new denture, or we could always hope that the person was eligible for dental work by Medicaid, which was rather like ordering them shipped by the slowest boat coming from China.

Several years after the initial shocking introduction to the role of social workers and dentures, when I was the director of social services in a different nursing home, I had another encounter with a box of dentures. We had a confused resident who wandered in and out of other people's rooms. One day I was told by a nurse that this resident was seen carrying someone else's glasses and could I look into it? Seeing as I had nothing else to do that day, or so everyone seemed to think, I went to the resident's room to look around.

Mrs. Jones (name changed to protect confidentiality) had no family and very few of her own possessions. Her guardian had placed her in the nursing home when she could no longer be cared for in a Board and Care home, which is a small residential care home, licensed by the state to care for the elderly. She did have a couple of suitcases in the closet, which apparently the staff never bothered to open at admission. So being the thorough, investigative social worker that I was, I decided to tackle the suitcases.

The first suitcase contained nothing else but shoes. There were all kinds of shoes, including high heels, loafers, and sandals. Some were matching pairs and some were just loners. The second suitcase was mostly empty. Turning from the suitcases, I opened the dresser drawers and found the usual items issued by the nursing home, such as a toothbrush, comb, and washbasin. And in one drawer I found a shoebox. "Oh dear," I said to myself, "another pair of shoes!"

But when I opened the shoebox, I found it full of (you guessed it) dentures! I have to confess that I started to laugh, and kept on laughing all the way to my office. My first thought was that she had wandered into other residents' rooms and taken the dentures, stashing them away for a rainy day. But after checking with her guardian, I learned that she had brought that shoebox from the Board and Care and had evidently been hoarding them there. Since there was no way to identify the rightful owners, I was again stuck with a shoebox of dentures in my office.

I had lost touch with the man who made Kachina dolls, so I couldn't use him as a resource. But then I hit upon a creative idea. You see, another duty of the Social Service Department is to provide staff in-services on various topics, including the safeguarding of resident possessions. I firmly believe that people learn better when they can see something, rather than just being told. So I kept the box of dentures. Every so often I would give an in-service on that very important topic of "How to Mark Resident Possessions on Admission," and "How to Report Missing Items to Social Service." And just when I felt my students were sufficiently bored, having heard this speech many times before, I would pull out my shoebox and invite someone to open it. It never failed to bring about a few shrieks and giggles and made the point very effectively.

Let me assure everyone that I treated all my clients with respect and dignity, and expected the rest of the staff to do the same. This story is not meant to poke fun at the confused elderly. They are all dear people, and many of their stories would break your heart. It is merely a vignette about the life of a nursing home social worker, and also what to expect should you ever be called upon to place a loved one there. My own mother lives in a nursing home now. Although I am tempted to call the social worker and complain about her missing stuffed moose, I don't, because I know that things can and will get lost.

So before checking your loved one into a nursing home, please listen to the following advice about what belongings to bring. Nursing homes are required to allow resident's to bring their own belongings, and in fact it is strongly encouraged to help make the transition from home easier. But there are some dos and don'ts to remember in this process.

1. Clearly mark all clothing with the resident's name, preferably sewn on, but at least with indelible ink. Nursing home laundries uses commercial size washers and dryers, and all resident's belongings are washed together. The laundry staff need to be able to read the resident's name in order to get the clothing to the right room. Don't put the room number on them, because residents frequently move rooms during their stay ( but that's a topic for another installment of Days of a Nursing Home Social Worker).

2. Make sure the staff inventory all items upon admission and put the inventory in your family member's chart. That way when something turns up missing, you will have proof that it was actually brought to the facility.

3. Do not bring clothing that needs special care, such as sweaters that will shrink in the wash. I can't tell you how many little Barbie-sized sweaters have been delivered to my office by the laundry staff after they went through the hot water cycle.

4. Do not bring in valuable jewelry, family heirlooms, or fragile items that may easily break. Mom's wedding rings may fall off because they no longer fit her, and then are nowhere to be found. Although theft is a possibility, the more likely scenario is that they were swept into the trash or fell into the toilet.

5. Do bring in family pictures that can be replaced, non-valuable mementos, stuffed animals, a favorite blanket, or something else that will help the family member know that even though they have moved into a nursing home, they are still loved.