[Relocation in a nursing home of a spouse with cognitive impairment: experience of wives]

The goal of this phenomenological study was to describe the experience of wives during the relocation to a long-term care facility of their spouse with cognitive impairment. Four wives shared their experience four to six weeks after the relocation of their husband. The process involved four phases: decision making, a long waiting period before relocation, the adjustment to the living accommodation, and the new direction of their life. For the wives, the decision making was characterized by numerous disillusions involving a lack of support from their children and their social service providers. The waiting period to find a location is exhausting for the wives bringing them to intimidate the interveners ; hoping to accelerate the process of finding living accommodations. Once a location is found, the spouses are generally relieved and content with their new surroundings even though they remain concerned with the security of their spouse. In conclusion, the reorganization of their life is very difficult seeing as they experience a significant loss of revenue due to incurred living accommodation expenses and maintaining their responsibility for their husband.