Advice on how to handle Mom: she has been in a skilled nursing facility and can walk 125 ft. I am bringing her home today and she says she can't walk.

Sorry Mum, but if you cannot walk, you cannot move home with me.

Why are you bringing her home if she can’t or won’t walk? Do you have adequate help to deal with such a scenario?

I deal with this constantly! My mom has Parkinson’s and falls. She does home health and improves. As soon as it’s over, back to saying that she can’t. As many times as physical therapist and occupational therapist says to her use it or lose it. doesn’t seem to sink in or as you say they want us to believe they can’t do it. Of course at their age and health issues it is hard for them. I do sympathize but nevertheless it is very hard to deal with. I understand completely how you feel. I hope she and my mom will realize that they must do their part to have a better quality of life.

You know sometimes I feel that if it is such a struggle to get old, that I would rather not live as long! She’s 93. God bless her an all elderly people. God bless us, their caregivers too!!!

My husband with dementia was in hospital during a lockdown. He had been about to be released and didn’t get sick but had an additional 2 weeks there. During this time when the nurses had extra work and were taking extra precautions, they gave him a wheelchair to get around with rather than them having to worry about him falling. So he got it in his mind that he couldn’t walk and wasn’t going to at home - I told him he wasn’t coming home then and we’d have to find a nursing home. He started walking pretty quickly after that.

125 feet sounds like a very specific distance. In fact, it sounds like the sort of a distance that a person might walk when being assessed for discharge, in a safe, flat environment, attended by a physical or occupational therapist and one or more aides saying lots of encouraging and sympathetic things, and having to do it just the once.

It probably feels a bit different when you're contemplating how to get up from your chair and walk to the bathroom, round the furniture, over carpeting, through doorways, with a tired and possibly cross and certainly stressed out daughter suspecting you of being intentionally difficult.

Does your mother want to be discharged home? Thinking about the whole situation completely afresh, do you think she might do better in a facility?

Phar, I went back and read some of your other posts.

You sure sound burned out. You sounded like you though it might be time for placement.

What your mother may be saying is " I can walk here with the help they give me; I don't think I can do as well at home".

Maybe mom wants to stay in a place with assistance. Has anyone asked her?

What do YOU want to see happen?

I think we are living the same lives.

My mother fears falling. She is on one of the supposed "safer" anticoagulants and has fallen - albeit with someone right there with her, and she is scared to death of doing it. Believe me, I get that.

I myself, at 47, have fallen in my home. I was alone, fell down the stupid stairs hitting my head the whole way. Could have knocked me right out. So, I am fully aware of the fear, it's real, and it's frightening especially if youre 81 and something thins your already frail blood.

Your mom may actually be telling the truth. She may not be able to walk at home. Because there is no one there on either side of her, being that literal catch-all if she buckles. I am living the same thing right now. My mom is an absolute whiz on her walker now. I helped train her - stand up straight, look forward not down, keep your weight even - she's great at it. But when I leave she will stay in bed and not move all night except for a plastic toilet that she can slide over to easily.

It's fear based. And we can't fully realize or understand it at our age or place in life. My own ideas are that my mom should be fighting like hell and saying, "Well, yeah I take this blood thinner, so I'm going to make d*&! sure I don't fall!" I even told her that her mindset should really be one of, "I'm not gonna let that happen to me," certainly if she can help it and for the most part she can. They anticipate my mom can get her stamina and mobility back based on what they diagnosed. But, she has to be willing.

PT is great for getting the strength and flexibility there, and when they see that she can walk 125 feet they grant the "improvement" grade. I know this because my mom was just assessed the other day.

But nobody gets into their mind and their psyche except themselves. I told my mom the other day out of sheer frustration, "You don't think about walking you think about falling." The look on her face told me that I was right.

Oh geez mom, I am sorry to hear you can't. Guess it's time for placement because I CAN'T care for an invalid.

As much effort as she puts in, is as much effort as you put in.

Either she will make the effort or be placed, make it her choice, then she can only complain about herself.

I tend to believe your mom, and this is why. The Federal government penalizes a healthcare facility for "preventable" injuries including falls. While they are preventable, they still happen despite the best of interventions. I seen research that shows bed alarms are only 20% effective..at best. I use a floor alarm for my mom and this was very effective to prevent falls at night---but this 20% effective rate is probably true when you have a hall full of patients (as opposed to just one person) and the nurse can't get there on time. Even so, over 90% of the times when my mom fell is when I was with her. Sometimes she just takes it on herself to just try to sit as though a chair were behind her but only a bare floor..or it can happen so fast it could not have been stopped on time. There was one instance she feel straight back and it was so fast I could not stop it. It happened REAL fast. luckily no brain bleed or damage. By the grace of God actually. Nurses will also get punished by administration for falls, so the SAFEST bet is to keep them in bed. True they won't fall..but it also makes the patients much weaker to the point they lose their mobility. Federal law says they don't fall all is well. When a person loses the capacity to be mobile and stay in bed all the time it fulfills Federal guidelines of no falling. Just think about that. I will keep my mom out of a hospital. I will use the Emergency Room but no hospitalization and she's on Hospice. I try to keep my mom mobile because it makes her care a lot easier and increases quality of life for HER.

She's messing with you - she is planning a guilt trip & this is her first step - why are you bringing her home because she obviously does better with professionals?

Could you provide more details so we can give you specific help?