My husband is in a Memory Care assisted living facility and he continues to fall daily. He denies falling yet he has tons of Band-Aids, all over him that he placed himself, and he will not tell the caregivers when he falls. He tells me just knocks into the wall, but he is on blood thinner and then that creates blood everywhere but he doesn’t know until he wakes up the next morning and there’s blood all over the bed. The only way I find out is when the caregivers see the bandages and call me or when I go to visit him and I ask him what happened. It takes him a good amount of time to finally tell me everything that happened…either he’s forgotten or he’s definitely trying to cover it up. He gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. There are motion nightlights in the room but by the time he gets to the point where it probably recognizes motion he’s already either fallen into the wall or fallen down. I purchased new on at dusk off at dawn night lites. I have discussed with the administrator about a bed alarm in his room. I finally got him to tell me about one time when he had to crawl to bed because he couldn’t get off the toilet and I said..you must’ve fallen and he said no I didn’t fall. I said well how did you get on the floor? He says I think I hit my head on the sink. Needless to say I took him to the ER for a CAT scan because he has had multiple brain aneurysms and blood clots. He had been wetting the bed so I bought him these men pee pads to wear at night so he won’t have to get up, but of course he won’t use. The caregivers had no record of him falling because he doesn’t tell anybody so I told his next option other than the bed alarm will be moving him to the next level will they will be closely monitoring him. By the way, he won’t use a walker or a cane… those are for old people he says. I’m afraid one of these days a fall is gonna kill him. The administrator told me that it’s just normal decline and trying to cover up things denying falling, but I wanna make sure I can keep them safe..
He’s going to keep falling because his brain doesn’t understand that he should use a walker or cane. He will never understand. Once he’s bedbound he might be safer from falls, but then you have to worry about bedsores and his crawling out of the bed.
He has a terrible disease, and it will win one way or the other. My mom had dementia, and we went to extraordinary lengths to prevent falls and injuries. So she lived for more than 5 years after diagnosis. After I saw what dying of dementia is like, the horrible inability to speak, the contracture of muscles so that she was in a fetal position, her teeth turning brown and (when she could still talk) her begging to die, I wished she’d fallen and died of the fall when she could still walk and fall. Just sayin’….
She lived to 95 in spite of it all.
Best of luck to you.
Hopefully he will not fall because he is at home and someone is always monitoring.
It maybe too much to expect individual care from a facility. Maybe can use diapers to help prevent having to get up and fall down. This is just what is happening in my situation.
Since he is in memory care unit already, he won't remember or likely even know how / when he falls, etc. ... that you 'ask him' tells me that you do not understand how his brain functions and how he has lost / continues to lose brain cells.
He doesn't have the cognitive capacity (brain cells) to know / remember.
I suggest that you google / read Teepa Snow's books or webinars, or watch her You Tubes. Many of your questions would be answered as you learn about how the brain works when a person has dementia. From my experience, I believe when in memory care unit, it is considered 'advanced' dementia.
Discuss with his MD, the facility.
(Most) Facilities / departments do not offer 1-on-1 personal 24/7 care - or if they do, it would likely be 3-4 times higher than the usual fee. From my experience, if more care is needed, the responsibility is on the family to hire caregivers directly.
Gena / Touch Matters
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