Mom keeps falling at memory care. What have others experienced?

They fall. They fall all the time. It is not the facilities fault and as you said, your mother fell while she was at home. I won't tell you our sad saga but when you have a parent that has dementia, cannot cooperate, cannot remember what they can and cannot physically do, the worry is for what might happen. Lots of bad stuff might and probably will happen; which is part of this horrible disease. Her falls are not the result of lack of care; she fell because of her dementia. Not your fault and there is no one to blame with this disease either. It is difficult; I know that, my mother is in a facility, my MIL died of dementia post hip fracture in October and my FIL is still in facility where he is wheelchair bound but thinks he can walk. Not being cavalier about this but all you can do without making yourself crazy is to understand that there is really very little you can do to alter what might be a bad outcome. She could fall and break her hip, fracture her skull or her neck. I am just not sure that anything can be done unless you sedate them to the point of them not moving. I am not advocating that of course, just saying I don't think there is anyway to stop it. So take melatonin or whatever to help you sleep at night; try to avoid computer screens before bed because the blue light contributes to nighttime "monkey brain" and understand that this is a really tough journey to be on.

I was just talking to someone about this very thing, only it was from the staff's perspective. It is an unfortunate fact of life that old people fall even with the best of care, sometimes even when there is someone right there. Three falls is a lot but instead of blaming this on poor care and going in with guns blazing you will be better served to dial it back a bit. Ask for a care conference to calmly discuss what is going on - what exactly is leading to these falls? What measures are being put into place to stop it from happening again?

Since going into Assisted Living in 2014, my mother has fallen 36x, never having a serious injury as a result, believe it or not. Since moving to the Memory Care section this past June, she's fallen 5x. It's never been 'their' fault, either........she has balance issues and authority issues as well. In other words, she refuses to listen to what she's told and so, she falls. Now that she's wheelchair bound, I thought Hey, she'll stop falling so much! But no, she's fallen 5x since because she insists she's able to transfer alone, which she isn't, and that's why she falls.

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!

There’s only so much you can do to prevent falls with some dementia patients. Even the best facilities are not staffed enough to prevent most falls.

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.

My step father falls on a regular basis, his legs just don't hold him up, he kind of collapses, it can happen anywhere, it is not the homes fault, he is just old and the parts are wearing out.

Falls and old people go hand in glove I am sorry to say. My mother has been in memory care for almost 12 months and her falls have been steadily increasing. There are several scenarios to her falls..
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.

Here is another consideration for this chronic problem(falls): Consider a smaller 6 bed facility where staffing is 1:3. More attention, less commotion... often is a nice remedy.

After my MILs last fall in my home, and her subsequent stay in the hospital and transfer to a facility, she was transferred to a different facility for memory care. I thought "Great, she will be safe from falling" and get better care than I could give her. I was wrong about the falling. She falls more there than she did here, but I have finally accepted that falls are to be expected, because of several factors and in my MILs case, progression of this horrible disease.

It used to be that every facility was "dinged" when a client fell as "bad care". Now, we realize that folks with poor balance and poor judgment will fall. Every facility tries to minimize injuries through: training and use of walkers, beds in lowest positions possible, thick mats of sides of bed when client in bed, wheelchairs as needed... I hate to think that anybody expects their loved one to be tied into a chair to keep him/her from falling. That tends to create problems with bedsores on their bottoms.

I don’t know that you can necessarily chalk it up to bad care. My mother refuses to use her walker even though she fell a year ago and needed surgery ( she doesn’t remember any of that experience) . She doesn’t think she needs it but her balance is awful as is her judgement. She fell because she was standing up putting her pants on, never thought to sit to do it. Personally, I think the alternative , being bedridden , is worse. Not really a great alternative.