My father has fallen 3x in last 36 hours. Once in the house, no one is sure what happened as my sister walked in and saw him lying there and just helped him up. The second time, he was in the wheelchair waiting for the caretaker to pull her car around and thought he would be able to wheel himself out to the car on his own and instead, the wheel got stuck in a crack and he toppled over. The third time is when he came home and thought he could just grab a big old leaf of alfalfa to feed the horses and in doing so, somehow fell over his own feet. My brother saw him almost fall again today by doing the same thing, by pivoting and not picking his feet up correctly. He's already had a hip replaced and it didn't take very well so he has problems walking. Since he is the one in control of his finances and hiring of the caregivers, he decides the hours that they should be here. Quite frequently he's been letting them go home early. His falling is occurring more often, and yet he's letting the caregivers go home early. Should I just let him fall and break another hip and see where things go? I've tried having the Life Alert conversation with him and he doesn't want to even consider having such a service. I've also told him listen, if there is something that you need to have done and if you do it yourself it creates more of a fall risk, you need to call someone else in one of us will do it for you.
This is scary and stressful for you to deal with, but what happens to stubborn elders who refuse to do the right thing. Their power of choice gets taken away and managed care gets forced upon them eventually. You may want to explain that fact to your father so maybe he stops sending the caregivers home early at least. But remember, you can't save a person from himself and it may take a crisis to force dad's hand in this matter.
I feel for you, I really do. Best of luck with a difficult situation
Mom falling in her home; Mom letting caregivers leave early. The caregivers were completely willing to stay more hours per day, to prevent these falls. My Mom’s falls are VERY predictable. When she falls, it always happens at exactly the same time. 6 pm. Going to the bathroom. Simple solution: make sure the caregiver is there every day 6 pm. She didn’t want that.
I’ve now changed the system, from daytime to live-in carers. We’re starting the new system soon. My Mom finally agreed to change system.
The line “if there is something that you need to have done and if you do it yourself it creates more of a fall risk, you need to call someone else in one of us will do it for you” is not going to work because he doesn’t think that he will fall. Plus it makes him think that all he has to do is call and everyone will rush – which is unreasonable and possibly also unrealistic.
Besides waiting for the crisis, backing off and leaving him to cope on his own may work. With luck he will see that he is NOT independent, and isn’t going to be independent again in his life. He needs your help, and it has to be on your terms to be viable.
Are you going to consider placing both of them? Seems you have the POA/HCPOA? Is your father still considered legally competent?
BTW, I love your statement from your other post, "I understand the brain shrinks and yada yada yada when people have dementia, however, that realization does not help the situation AT ALL. Things don't just magically get better because you know and understand the reason why a behavior is happening. The situation is still just as difficult for those of us that have to manage and take care of people. "
Love it. I often think that when I read explanations of why an elder is doing this or that. Knowing doesn't make it any easier to accept what often amounts to as abuse, particularly when it's only one sibling, right?
Yes, knowing why something is happening for me hardly ever helps. Another common thing I've had to deal with is where they will say things like, oh you don't have it so hard. Remember there are people on other sides of the world that are getting bombed and/or dying of starvation. It's like, what a way to totally disregard a person's struggle 😑 while I know their statement is true as I am not unwise to these worldly happenings, their comment and reference is totally irrelevant to the situation and quite irritating😔