You say in your profile that your dad lives in assisted living and has dementia. Perhaps he now requires more help than he's receiving there? I don't know, I'm just guessing. Or can you ask someone at the AL to help him when he wants to get out of his wheelchair and into his recliner? That way they can safely move his wheelchair out of the way. When you're dealing with someone who's brain is broken even the simple common sense things no longer exist in their brains, and as we like to say in my caregiver support group, "logic doesn't live here anymore." And it doesn't. So you or someone else now has to be your dads brain for him. I wish you well.
Have some spare footrests on hand to replace the broken ones when this happens. With dementia at play (as indicated in your profile), your father is not going to remember that he should not be parking his w/c in front of his recliner so it's an exercise in futility to keep telling him to stop. Alert the staff to what's happening so they can move the chair away if/when they see it in the wrong position.
Case in point: my mother had dementia and lived in AL herself, then moved into Memory Care AL. She couldn't remember to not push the electric recliner button ALL the way back on her chair which had to sit close to the wall due to space restrictions. As a result, she made a few rather large HOLES in the drywall from that chair pushing it's way through the wall b/c she didn't realize to stop pushing the button. Eventually I had to unplug the chair entirely, but she hated that too b/c she did enjoy the reclining feature. Sigh.
Dementia overcomplicates everything to the point of insanity, it really does.
When you're dealing with someone who's brain is broken even the simple common sense things no longer exist in their brains, and as we like to say in my caregiver support group, "logic doesn't live here anymore." And it doesn't. So you or someone else now has to be your dads brain for him.
I wish you well.
Case in point: my mother had dementia and lived in AL herself, then moved into Memory Care AL. She couldn't remember to not push the electric recliner button ALL the way back on her chair which had to sit close to the wall due to space restrictions. As a result, she made a few rather large HOLES in the drywall from that chair pushing it's way through the wall b/c she didn't realize to stop pushing the button. Eventually I had to unplug the chair entirely, but she hated that too b/c she did enjoy the reclining feature. Sigh.
Dementia overcomplicates everything to the point of insanity, it really does.
Best of luck.