My grandfather is almost 89, always very active. My grandmother passed 3 months ago and we noticed a decline. Loss of memory, appetite, etc. in mid-May he had 2 falls and ended up in the hospital. He has been there for 4 weeks. Medically he is stable. They think he may have had a stroke in the weeks or months prior but aren’t sure. Hospital says his movements mimic Parkinson’s symptoms but they don’t think he has that. He was mobile up until he went into the hospital. After about 3-4 days the hospital staff stopped attempting to assist him out of bed as they said he was too rigid and it was dangerous for them. Now he is bedridden and uses a mechanical lif to go between the bed and broda chair. I want him to go to rehab to see if he can get mobility back but the hospital won’t recommend it because they say he isn’t a good candidate. I feel like a lot of the mobility issues were caused by leaving him in bed. I think they are also making that determination based on the fact that he is sometimes slow to respond to command. It takes him a bit longer to process commands, or they approach him when they have just woken him up. I think if he is given a chance maybe he could get some mobility back. Am I wrong to try and push for this?
Mind you, we're also talking about someone who lost his life partner in March. How is your grandfather coping with that, do you think? And how he is generally?
Aside from the good advice and wisdom from the other responders, your grandfather may be suffering from continued depression from the loss of his wife. There is a phenomenon called the Widowhood Effect: a "...National Institutes of Health study that examined more than 370,000 elderly married couples in the United States, researchers found that within the first 3 months after one spouse dies, the chance that their partner will also pass is between 30 and 90 percent."
source: https://www.uhhospitals.org/Healthy-at-UH/articles/2018/05/the-widowhood-effect
I'm only pointing this out because at his very advance age, you may need to adjust your expections for him. I'm sorry for the loss of your grandmother. May you receive wisdom for how to help your grandfather and gain peace in your heart during this journey.
Unfortunately we are are all too familiar with the home-hospital-rehab cycle in our family. And every single time we always saw improvement. Until the very last time - at which time my FIL was actually discharged from the rehab facility as "not rehabilitatable". A very big part of it was his mental/mindset. He was physically able to do it. But he absolutely refused to do the exercises. Refused to go to PT some days. And when he did, he refused to do the exercises. So after a while they just changed his status from rehab to nursing home and treated him as such until they discharged him. That was the only time he has ever been discharged from rehab that he did not progress back to at least where he was when he went in and came home worse off that he started.
They have certain criteria that they look at and decide whether a rehab facility will be able to help get your loved one to a certain level of mobility. If they know that rehab won't be able to help him based on his levels in the hospital there is a good chance they won't transfer him to a facility - at least as a 'rehab' patient, because they know that they won't be able to help.