It's not cold but my 98 yo mother wants the heater on. Says space heater doesn't work and resists layering. It's so hot in here I'm sick to my stomach. How do others deal with this?
I pick out my 96 year old Mom's clothes every day. She wears a long sleeve shirt and heavy hoodie, pants, and warm socks and a hat. She is still cold. I also bought a heated throw that she loves. I will put my heat up to 69 degrees and thats it.
Elderly persons do not have fat layers that they once did, that is why they always feel cold. To make matters worse they can't thermo regulate themselves much like infancy, it's just a physiological fact. You might have to do as I did with my own mother which was to get a smart thermostat which I can remotely check and regulate. If she complains that is too cold I offer her a choice if layering or another blanket. I have had to tell her she can't afford these high bills any longer, which is a truth. I've tasked other family members with the rules of heating her house. She in addition also wants ALL the lights on day and night but refuses to open the blinds to let natural sunlight in. Again I had to put my foot down. Maybe for me it was easier to do this because my mother physically won't get up to change the thermostat or turn on the lights, she would just scream for whoever was around to do her bidding. As a family we had to get on the same page but my nephew who lives in her house had a hard time telling her no to her requests. I had to put it to him as this, if he wouldn't turn off lights or lower the heat he would then pay for those bills. He then got on board. Unfortunately elderly persons need boundaries too as much as children sometimes. It's very hard but you will have to do it. Best wishes as you go forward.
Hi Breezy, the older we are the greater the risk of Cataracts which gives us extreme sensitivity to sunlight so drawn blinds become a must have, has your Mother been checked for cataracts?
#1 Dress very lightly. Elderly are so much colder than we are and need to be kept warm. And I understand them not wanting to layer. It is hard enough to dress and layers are added energy. Since she doesn't want layers, offer lovingly, a blanket (here is a little blanket for your shoulders Mom, I know how you get cold). Or hand or lap warmers, or warmers you can lay across her shoulders after microwaving. There are very cute stuffed aninal looking warmers you can microwave. A good early Christmas gift! She may then be able to tolerate a cooler climate. Lastly, if there is one room you can keep cool that she dorsn't use, as a brief retreat for yourself. Good luck!!
OMG this is what my mother does, too! She stays in just one room but blasts the heat for the whole house! We haven't dealt with it yet - I had hired someone to put up a wall and move the thermostat but he botched the job and I haven't bothered since - but I'm thinking of getting a "smart" thermostat like we had at our old house. If she understands it, she will change it, but I'll be able to change it back immediately from my phone. And get alerts on my phone. Otherwise, we will just put a lock box over it so she can't mess with it. I am tired of sweating in my own home!
Sgcinsd: Perhaps your mother is on blood thinners that make her cold. Nonetheless, multi-generational living has to be satisfactory to all so perhaps your mother will HAVE to wear sweaters. Once my mother went on Coumadin, she wore sweaters, but she had NEVER done so before.
I have not read every response here, so apologies if I'm saying something someone else has said, but my husband and I often will wear a fleece hat. Most of your body's heat goes out your head, so a hat and the occasional muffler should keep her plenty warm. Amazing how well that works, and it doesn't take hardly any energy to put them on.
Also, if using a heated throw, place a light throw blanket over the top of it. I did that and found that low was perfect, where before I could barely feel the high setting. Same thing for in a bed...heating blanket with a light cover over the top to keep the heat in.
I had the same problem with my mom. She mainly just like messing with things, but did get cold easy. Multiple attempts at talking with her about it did not work. I bought a lockbox on Amazon to go over the thermostat and kept the key. I made sure it was set to a comfortable temp, she had blankets to use, fuzzy socks, & a warm bathrobe. I said nothing to her about the box, she apparently somewhere along the way realized she couldn't get to it, and no more messing with it. We didn't talk about and she just used what I left there for her to cover up with. It was never an issue after putting on the lockbox. Never had to talk about it again.
Get 3 space heaters, 2 huge wall thermometers, and consider the safety of an electric blanket and livestock chicks lightbulb warmer (which also come in black for no light, not just red). The best way to warm up is from the inside, with a warm thermos and warm showers. There are also turtle basking lights but with all light bulbs, don't get more wattage than the lamp can safely handle. Lightbulbs can put out a lot of heat if you can get the ones that do that. A full spectrum light bulb won't heat but because it looks like daylight, it might affect her brain well. Women who can't layer due to arthritis often have no problem with loose leg warmers hats, fingerless mittens and ponchos. Some women who don't like to layer will wear men's part wool long john tops and/or bottoms under their clothes. Depending on safety (elders don't realize when they are burning), she could lean back on a heating pad, too. There are very small lower back heating pads that are rechargeable. Socks block a lot of heat. If she gets clammy, remind her cotton wicks heat out so she'll need to put wool over or under the cotton in order to avoid clammy feet, etc...
Oh yes. My parents home is in Mesa, AZ and I finally won the battle to keep the temp at 75/76 all year round. The caregivers were melting at 80 degrees. In the winter, I close the vent in the room I stay in and open a window (I live in Oregon with my family 1/2 time). In the summer I have am evaporative cooler. The caregivers will ask my mother "Do you want to pay me to nap or work? would you like a blanket? or hat?" Having made the payer of utilities and the caregiver understand it is her choice, the caregiver goes to the thermostat and makes sure it is on "cool" and changes the temp accordingly. It is healthier to laugh at the situation than cry or get mad, so I make myself see the ridiculousness of it all. (Think Harry Potter scene where they are handling a bogart - turns into whatever you fear most and "ridiculous" is the spell to turn Professor Snape into an old woman, a spider to one with roller skates. These incidents will keep happening, so we take a deep breath and do the routine again.
Rainbow, that's a nice comprise your caregivers have given your parents. 75/76 during winter months is very warm inside in southern AZ. Summer months it's good or better than 80° anyways.
One time I went hog wild and purchased a bunch of table-top humidifiers as the house was so dry the cats didn't like being petted due to static electricity.
At first we really like the humidifiers, they came in interesting shapes such as a old train steam engine with the steam coming out of the chimney. I was surprised when I noticed that in one room the steam had left a white coating on the wood furniture, and in my home office the steam left a coating on my plastic 3-ring binders that were in a closet. Getting that white film off was a bear.
Therefore, if you get table top humidifiers be careful of the settings and where you place the humidifier.
My parents had a humidifier attached to their furnace and it worked fine, except when Dad was aging he apparently would forget to clean the humidifier, thus it became moldy.
My stepdad always wanted every room to be around 80 degrees and we just couldn't work like that. My husband sweats easily but I don't, and even I sweated! I kept telling him to put on more clothes because I couldn't take any more off and still be decent. We started keeping the dining room cooler and offered him a jacket. We also edged the thermostats down in the community rooms, so after a year of living here (dad's house) we are around 72 most of the time and now ol' dad just puts a sweatshirt on when he gets dressed. It was a long process, but it's definitely better. I wish I'd thought about the heated clothes. Someone gave me a shirt but didn't have the battery pack and I never bothered getting one.
Just as a matter of interest, ducted air-conditioning (heating and cooling) has largely gone out of fashion where I am. The power drain on the public power system was so high that permission was eventually required to install it, then household economics took over. Room-size units got much cheaper (including to install), and you could heat or cool the living areas in the day and the bedrooms at night (or use a night fan, which is often enough cooling). New houses are rarely built with ducted systems.
Some people are now installing a day-time unit, and switching off their original ducted system unless they have a special need to use the whole house at once. It works out a lot cheaper. We have two single room units, which we run easily on our solar power. We couldn’t run a ducted system on solar power.
It might be interesting to check if a similar change could work to stop the whole house being unbearably hot.
Another interesting ‘thermo’ fact is that our bodies lose heat by radiating to the surroundings. There are cheap low-power wallboard units that don’t do much to warm the room, but have quite an effect on someone sitting close to them because they lose less of their own heat.
Even woven hangings work to block a cold wall with a lot of thermal mass or poor insulation to the outside. That’s how people managed to live in reasonable comfort in those freezing stone castles in Europe in the Middle Ages. They used wall hangings (tapestry or rugs), which they took with them when they moved to another place. A doona in a pretty cover could work the same way, if you could hang it on the wall by the chair. Who says we can't learn from the past?
My engineer DH has a special interest in thermo, which is much trickier than usually understood. Just when you think you understand it all, you learn something new again.
We installed mini split units, after we put a new whole house energy efficient unit in. The change saves us lots of money but, the important thing is the comfort level has increased.
The whole house unit pulls 15 amps the entire time it is running. The mini split pulls 2 or 3 amps consistently.
It is amazing to me that we are still installing inefficient units in the USA.
We locked the thermostat and closed all the vents in the house except the one in her room and give her warm socks, a fleece robe, a fleece hat, and an electric blanket. My mom will run the heat when it is 85 degrees outside. It was brutal trying to cook or shower but it's better with all the vents closed. We will open them partially during the winter months. I sympathize with you, Sgcinsd!
You could also get her a split system (like the ones in a hotel room) or install a gas heater in her room if you have the funds.
We haven't dealt with it yet - I had hired someone to put up a wall and move the thermostat but he botched the job and I haven't bothered since - but I'm thinking of getting a "smart" thermostat like we had at our old house. If she understands it, she will change it, but I'll be able to change it back immediately from my phone. And get alerts on my phone. Otherwise, we will just put a lock box over it so she can't mess with it.
I am tired of sweating in my own home!
Also, if using a heated throw, place a light throw blanket over the top of it. I did that and found that low was perfect, where before I could barely feel the high setting. Same thing for in a bed...heating blanket with a light cover over the top to keep the heat in.
The caregivers will ask my mother "Do you want to pay me to nap or work? would you like a blanket? or hat?" Having made the payer of utilities and the caregiver understand it is her choice, the caregiver goes to the thermostat and makes sure it is on "cool" and changes the temp accordingly.
It is healthier to laugh at the situation than cry or get mad, so I make myself see the ridiculousness of it all. (Think Harry Potter scene where they are handling a bogart - turns into whatever you fear most and "ridiculous" is the spell to turn Professor Snape into an old woman, a spider to one with roller skates. These incidents will keep happening, so we take a deep breath and do the routine again.
At first we really like the humidifiers, they came in interesting shapes such as a old train steam engine with the steam coming out of the chimney. I was surprised when I noticed that in one room the steam had left a white coating on the wood furniture, and in my home office the steam left a coating on my plastic 3-ring binders that were in a closet. Getting that white film off was a bear.
Therefore, if you get table top humidifiers be careful of the settings and where you place the humidifier.
My parents had a humidifier attached to their furnace and it worked fine, except when Dad was aging he apparently would forget to clean the humidifier, thus it became moldy.
We started keeping the dining room cooler and offered him a jacket. We also edged the thermostats down in the community rooms, so after a year of living here (dad's house) we are around 72 most of the time and now ol' dad just puts a sweatshirt on when he gets dressed. It was a long process, but it's definitely better.
I wish I'd thought about the heated clothes. Someone gave me a shirt but didn't have the battery pack and I never bothered getting one.
Some people are now installing a day-time unit, and switching off their original ducted system unless they have a special need to use the whole house at once. It works out a lot cheaper. We have two single room units, which we run easily on our solar power. We couldn’t run a ducted system on solar power.
It might be interesting to check if a similar change could work to stop the whole house being unbearably hot.
Another interesting ‘thermo’ fact is that our bodies lose heat by radiating to the surroundings. There are cheap low-power wallboard units that don’t do much to warm the room, but have quite an effect on someone sitting close to them because they lose less of their own heat.
Even woven hangings work to block a cold wall with a lot of thermal mass or poor insulation to the outside. That’s how people managed to live in reasonable comfort in those freezing stone castles in Europe in the Middle Ages. They used wall hangings (tapestry or rugs), which they took with them when they moved to another place. A doona in a pretty cover could work the same way, if you could hang it on the wall by the chair. Who says we can't learn from the past?
My engineer DH has a special interest in thermo, which is much trickier than usually understood. Just when you think you understand it all, you learn something new again.
The whole house unit pulls 15 amps the entire time it is running. The mini split pulls 2 or 3 amps consistently.
It is amazing to me that we are still installing inefficient units in the USA.
You could also get her a split system (like the ones in a hotel room) or install a gas heater in her room if you have the funds.