Memory care and dementia
The question is almost never "is it time"
By the time a family calls us about dementia, they usually already know. What they have not been told is which homes can take her now, which can keep her as she declines, and what the law allows a home to refuse. Getting that wrong is how families end up moving somebody twice, which is the worst thing that can happen to a person with dementia.
There is no such thing as a memory care licence
This surprises almost everyone. In California, a home advertising memory care holds exactly the same licence as a home that does not: a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly. The phrase is marketing, not regulation.
That does not make it meaningless. Some homes genuinely are built and staffed for dementia — enclosed gardens, consistent caregivers, staff who know not to argue with a delusion. But because the word is not controlled, you cannot take it at face value, and the questions below are how you tell the difference.
The second move
How families get caught, and how to not be
This is the most useful thing on this page. It is also the thing almost no brochure mentions.
California regulation lets a care home evict a resident when a reassessment finds a need the home is not appropriate to meet. Thirty days' written notice is required. For dementia, that reassessment trigger usually arrives in one of four ways: she starts trying to leave, she becomes physically resistant during personal care, she needs two people to transfer, or she stops being able to do anything for herself.
Separately, regulation lists health conditions an RCFE may not admit or retain at all. One of them is a resident who depends on others to perform all of their activities of daily living. In late dementia that line is reachable, and when it is reached the home has no discretion.
So the question to ask on every tour is not "do you do memory care". It is: what is the specific point at which you would tell us she has to leave, and get the answer written into the admission agreement.
What a home may not admit or retain
22 CCR § 87615, in plain words
- Stage 3 and stage 4 pressure injuries
- A gastrostomy or naso-gastric feeding tube
- A tracheostomy
- Staphylococcus or another serious infection
- Dependence on others for all activities of daily living
Some of these can be managed by waiver or under hospice. If a home tells you it can take a resident with one of these conditions, ask to see the waiver or the hospice agreement in writing — not because they are lying, but because the exception has to exist on paper.
On the tour
What to look at when the word on the door means nothing
Five things that genuinely separate a dementia home from a care home with a locked door.
- 1
Walk to every exit yourself
Ask which doors are keypad, which are delayed egress, and which are simply doors. Then ask what sound it makes at 2am and who responds. A secured unit with one overnight caregiver for fourteen residents is a different thing from a secured unit with three.
- 2
Ask how long the caregivers have been there
For dementia, continuity does more good than any programme. A resident who is cared for by the same two people learns their faces even when she cannot learn their names. High turnover undoes everything else a building has.
- 3
Watch a meal, not an activity
Anybody can run a sing-along for visitors. Lunch is where you see whether someone who needs prompting gets it, whether a person who eats slowly is rushed, and whether anybody is left in front of a plate they cannot manage.
- 4
Ask what they do when she says she wants to go home
The answer tells you their whole philosophy. Staff trained for dementia redirect and reassure. Staff who are not will tell you they explain to her that this is her home now, which does not work and distresses everybody.
- 5
Ask about the garden
An enclosed outdoor space somebody can walk into without asking permission is the single most underrated feature in dementia care. Pacing is not a behaviour to be managed. It is a need, and a home with nowhere safe to do it will medicate it instead.
If you are already being asked to move her
An eviction notice has rules attached to it
If a home has given you notice, read it before you panic. California law requires an RCFE eviction notice to tell the resident, in the notice itself, that the facility must go to superior court and obtain a judgment signed by a judge to remove somebody who stays past the date — and that the resident has the right to contest it in writing and at a hearing.
The notice must also give you the contact details for your local long-term care ombudsman and tell you that you can ask the Department of Social Services to investigate. If your notice is missing those things, that itself is worth raising.
Thirty days is the standard notice period. Three days is only permitted where the licensing agency has given prior written approval on a finding of good cause.
A plain summary of 22 CCR § 87224 and Health and Safety Code § 1569.683 as they stand in October 2026. Not legal advice — if you are contesting an eviction, call the ombudsman.
Common questions
Memory care in Anaheim, answered
- Is there a separate memory care licence in California?
- No. Memory care is a service description, not a licence category. A home offering it is licensed as a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, the same licence as any other care home in Anaheim. That means the word on the brochure tells you nothing on its own, and you have to ask what is actually different about the building and the staffing.
- Can a care home make my mother leave once her dementia advances?
- It can, and this is the thing families are least prepared for. California regulation 22 CCR section 87224 allows an RCFE to evict a resident when a reappraisal identifies a need the facility is not appropriate to meet. That requires 30 days' written notice. Shorter notice of three days is only possible with prior written approval from the licensing agency.
- What conditions can a care home legally not accept?
- California regulation 22 CCR section 87615 lists health conditions for which a person may not be admitted or retained in an RCFE at all. They include stage 3 and 4 pressure injuries, gastrostomy and naso-gastric tubes, tracheostomies, staphylococcus and other serious infections, and a resident who depends on others to perform all of their activities of daily living. The last one matters most in late dementia.
- What does secured actually mean?
- Usually one of three things: a door with a keypad, a delayed egress door that alarms and holds briefly, or a genuinely enclosed building and garden. They are very different in practice. Ask to be shown every exit, and ask what happens at two in the morning when one of them opens.
Dementia care in Anaheim happens in both small board and care homes and larger communities. Which suits your mother depends far more on her temperament than on her diagnosis.
Tell us where she is now, and we will tell you where she can stay
The homes that can take her today are not the same as the homes that can keep her in two years. We will aim for the second list, so you only do this once.
Tell us who you are looking after
Four short questions. Nothing you answer is shared with a facility until you say so.
Prefer to talk now? (714) 975-9652, open every day until 6pm.