My Mom stays in her room almost all day. She has leg pain and I take her to a rehab facility. They massage her calf and put heat on her leg which really isn't doing much for the problem; She had 2 compressed fractures of the spine requiring surgery 3 months ago.This was an outpatient procedure. The rehab tech doesn't beleive the leg pain relates to her spine. She is taking pain meds and I have an appointment for her with a pain management clinic. My concern right now is her lack of appetite, wanting to stay in bed all day, and not wanting to bathe. She is 100 years old and has signs of dementia. I need guidance on how to deal with these issues.
(My concern right now is her lack of appetite, wanting to stay in bed all day, and not wanting to bathe. She is 100 years old and has signs of dementia.)
Your trying to pervent the unpreventable at 100 yrs old.You can't force feed her.And can't force what is not wanted.If you can't bare to help her anymore contact hospice.At 100 yrs old your not gonna get her to run a 4/40 track lap anymore.If don't use it you lose it.At a 100 yrs old is there any to use anymore.
It's time to let things be what they are.And enjoy the time you have left.
As for her appetite have you tried Ensure or Ensure shakes? A can of Ensure, some ice cream and a little milk. You can't force her to eat (or to do anything else) but try tempting treats. Favorite foods. You've probably tried all of these things already but again, you can only do so much. You can't force food down her gullet. Have you asked her what she'd like to eat? There are so many articles here regarding elderly people who don't want to eat. Maybe you can get a few ideas from them.
Staying in bed all day is the worst thing an elderly person can do. She will become weaker and weaker if she's not up and moving around at least every 30 minutes. But once again, how to get her to get up if she doesn't want to? You can entice her with a movie or some other activity she enjoys. Don't bring her anything while she's in bed, make her get up and get whatever it is she needs. And her lack of desire to bathe may be tied in with weakness from staying in bed. If she feels weak she's not going to want to bathe. Getting her out of bed is the key to all of this, I feel. I work in home healthcare and we have patients who need home healthcare because they've been in the hospital, in bed, and they lose all of their strength so that we have to come in and do PT and OT with them for weeks so they gain their strength back. I'm sure you've been told all of this at the rehab facility. And if she's going to rehab on a regular basis but laying in bed the other days that will undo any good the rehab is doing for her.
If the rehab isn't helping, maybe you should consider stopping it. There's a difference between not wanting to eat and refusing to eat. My own mother has no appetite and doesn't care about food but will eat because she knows she has to to keep up her strength.
It's possible that she doesn't want to get out of bed, bathe, eat, because of the pain. Or, it could be the dementia. Or, it could be something else. I found out that my mother didn't want to bathe because she feels dizzy, for example. It turned out to have nothing to do with dirty habits or dementia, just that she feels like she's going to fall. However, she had a hard time explaining it, so the problem went on for a long time before I discovered the real problem.
As for being in a wheelchair, it's not the end of the world. Lots of people end up in wheelchairs and scooters. If there's a way to prevent it, that's great, but I'm not clear that this is as much a problem, possibly, as finding out what's causing her pain.
If someone can be helped with PT and OT, it is great. But there does come a time when wisdom has to be used. I would have saved my father a lot of grief if I had advocated better for him in those last two months.
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