Not the best facility due to money constraints / Medicaid. Mom has been there 6 weeks, over the past week she has had three BAD falls, one needing a trip to ER for head scan - which seemed ok apparently (even though she has the biggest lump on the back of her head I have ever seen!). Is this common? I am so frustrated with the lack of care she is receiving. I am sick to my stomach every single day.
The only thing that has improved is I have been able to sleep at night now (most of the time if I can stop THINKING and worrying so much).
What have others experienced?
So much this!
I was guardian and conservator over an aunt with dementia who was in a MC facility. In two weeks, she fell about 6 times! Most of the falls happened in her room at night. One happened during the day. An aide had just helped her get settled into a chair and walked away. My aunt promptly stood up, made a noise, the aide turned around and saw her tumble. I began to jump out of my skin every time my phone rang because it was always bad news about yet another fall.
The only way to totally prevent a fall is
a. Stay awake all night and stare at her and be ready to jump up and catch or prevent her from getting up and falling
b. Hire someone to do the above
c. Sedate and strap them to bed or chair
d. A combination of the things above
All of these are untenable. Therefore falls are going to happen.
It goes with the territory for elders to fall, I'm afraid. I had ONE incident since 2014 where it was the ALFs fault that my father fell; the nurse was trying to lift him up alone and he fell. It was her fault, and she took full responsibility for it, and he wasn't hurt.
It is what it is. If you don't like the facility, look into moving your mother. But before you do, find out why she keeps falling..........is she slipping out of bed? Is she not following orders to use a walker? Is the floor slick with water? Otherwise, you will wind up moving her and finding the same fall issues in the next place.
Best of luck!
1 Her knees are too weak to support her despite physio, sometimes she will have a UTI, sometimes delerium, sometimes she is confused, sometimes she wants to pay back staff for some imagined transgression and falls purposely.
2 When she gets too tired of being in her lift chair or wheel chair, or if she is having a dummy spit, she stiffens her legs and simply slides to the floor. Sometimes she will co operate with staff in the lifting process, other times she is aggressive. Our instructions are to leave her on the floor until she calms down, but then she accuses staff of putting her there in the first place.
3 Mother simply gets agitated and rolls out of bed. The facility has brought in a bed that folds down to floor level, tbey put crash pads around the bed, have alarms around the bed. Sometimes they find her crawling on all fours or pulling herself around on her bottom. Sometimes she insists on remaining on crash pads, she is given a blanket and pillow and will sleep much better than in the bed.
She has been known to fall several times a day for many days in a row. We estimate she has had in excess of 50 falls. Many of the calls from staff come in the middle of the night because mothers circadian rhythms are totally out of wack.
Our instructions are that she only goes to hospital if she hits her head, otherwise staff deal with any skin tears, monitor her closely for 4 hours. The trip is too confusing for her, she cannot answer questions, she often cannot follow simple instructions such as open her mouth and say Ah, so there is no point when they will only monitor her, no scan if there is no head injury.
I never thought I would say this, but it is all water off a ducks back, now. When the staff identify themselves in a phone call my response is usually a What has she done now? Said in a semi joking manner.
my Mom is in a Memory Care facility - but we do not seem to have the same things available to her as you are mentioning (alarms on bed, crash pads, lower / floor bed (??). Since she hasn’t been there long, and this is my first experience with working with a facility for her care - I really don’t know how aggressive to get with them - for example : the Dr. diagnosed a level 1 pressure wound (bed sore) last Friday, ordered skilled nursing to treat it & she didn’t see anyone for treatment 4 1/2 days! By then it was of course worse!! She’s suppose to ONLY get finger foods because she is having difficulty with cutlery - and if someone tries to help her she gets angry & aggressive - but we have been there at meal time several days where she did not get finger foods and had to tell them! We wonder how often this happens, since she does not know enough to ask.
She has been diagnosed with Late Onset bvFTD & is on Geodon as well as an antidepressant. She is under the care of a psychiatrist and does see a therapist weekly - although they have had little success working with her so far.
We kept her home as long as we physically & safely could, but I feel like it may have been too long & she will never settle. Did we do her an injustice by keeping her home too long? Shouldn’t Drs be more forthcoming with these types of things and help make more informed decisions? Now I feel we are just waiting for her to die and there will be little to no joy, no calm or peacefulness left for her.
My mom had very mild dementia but could not understand that she needed help to get up and walk and wouldn’t use a walker. She started falling at home, finally got her in assisted living where she had 2 or 3 falls per week. We tried everything, I even hired a private sitter for 4 hours a day.
With each fall and injury her dementia deepened and she would try to walk even more and fall each time. It was maddening. I’ve sometimes wondered if there wasn’t some subconscious death wish going on with her. Mom died after four months of assisted living and memory care.
Its all very tough. You just do the best you can.
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