Depression could be at fault
Another issue that may contribute to an elderly parent whose bathing and grooming habits take a turn for the worse is depression. My mother was a clean freak, and she loved her daily bath. Her clothes needed to be fresh daily, preferably smelling of springtime.
When she made the decision to move to the nursing home where my dad lived, she went through the expected period of depression. One of the major clues was that she would put on the same clothes every day. Some of this was simply that she saw them laying on a chair and forgot that they'd been worn. However, some of change in her behavior was because she was temporarily depressed.
Depressed people often don't care about personal hygiene. They don't care about their clothes. The just don't care in general. If you see this happening to your elder, then you have a reason to be concerned. My mother's depression lifted as she adjusted to the nursing home. I tried to hurry that along by buying her some new clothes and making good use of the nursing home beauty shop. These steps helped, and she was soon back to being to her clean-freak self.
If her depression hadn't lifted, I would have asked the doctor to consider treating her for depression. If you find your elder has changed from am very clean person to one who doesn't care about appearances at all, you may want to consider a checkup to see if depression is at the bottom of this change. This depression is especially prominent after the death of a spouse.
Elder care author, columnist and speaker Carol Bradley Bursack is an AgingCare.com contributing editor and moderator of the
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