I find during night when she gets up for bathroom or I change her brief her face is bloody and fingers have blood on them. She will remove band-aids, steri strips and pick off any scabs and start the process over. I regular moisturize her skin. She lives at home with us. Her face is looking scarred and I am afraid she will develop a bacterial infection sooner or later that we do not need. HELP!! She does sleep. We have a bed alarm. Does not wander. But, does pick anything that feels texturized to her like scabs.
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This behavior is difficult to control and you've got the very best advice you can get: get her nails done with a gel overlay. You can do it every month or so, especially if you aren't too concerned with how they might look growing out.
What you want is a bluntness at the end of the nail that won't allow it to catch on whatever it is that isn't even on her skin. When she runs her nails over her skin, anything that isn't completely smooth or flat will be torn. Each time that happens, it hurts and you'd think that would stop it but it doesn't. That's because the brain gets a boost of dopamine, which can feel good and soothing and unfortunately reinforces the behavior.
It's kind of a vicious circle, so see about getting her nails done as described, making sure they are blunt and have no sharp edges, gel is what they usually use, and that will stop some of the most physically damaging parts of this and the meds can help with anxiety that might be partly driving it in the first place.
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I subscribe to a user on Facebook, Joshua Pettit, who posted videos of his mother Betty who had advanced Alzheimer's. Her fingernails were always polished in different colors. Well, it turns out that she had a powder gel treatment done on her nails every few weeks called SNS, which her Neurologist recommended to STOP HER FROM PICKING HER SKIN! This SNS system thickens the nails and makes them 'pick-proof', for lack of a better explanation! The nails are then trimmed very short and filed smooth. Betty had a huge issue with picking her skin till it bled and scabbed over, but it stopped on a dime with the SNS nail treatments (considered a 'dip' treatment)!
This SNS nail treatment would be beneficial to your mother to thicken up her nails and prevent the picking.
Good luck to you.
For example, If I drop a dime, I can't pick it up.
I can still wash dishes, clean and do chores easily and my nails are filed natural style, not those horrible, overly long pointed nails that are the rage, along with those thick, fake eyelashes.
She can select her favorite colors, have them shortened and filed smooth easily. Any professional manicurist can do a gel set. It stays beautiful and shiny until the actual nail grows out and it's time to cut them back and redo.