My father is in his 5th year of vascular dementia. My father will go weeks refusing to shower. If we ask him, he gets mad and will even throw things. He also has incontinence problem and smells awful. We have offered to take him out to eat, get him ice cream, and even help him. Still it’s a fight. I’m afraid he’s going to get worse. Any suggestions?
Cover909
Whatever you call them, a staff member that turns up 2-3 x week, says follow me & leads your father into the bathroom to get that wash & change of clothes DONE.
It can still take some trial. But he may not refuse for a sweet looking female, an older woman with a authoritive look or a man (some orefer a male aide).
My lot have had success with middle-aged female aides - with old-school authoritive nurse vibes 😁
The short-term memory of when last washed gets faulty. The processing memory of how to wash gets faulty. The planning ability to put clean clothes/continence briefs to go out gets faulty. The understanding to why it is nice to be clean in public fades.
If you break down all the the tiny steps to keep a body clean - the undressing, wetting, soaping, rinsing, drying, finding & re-dressing with clean clothes - it's quite a task list. An OT explained that to me, which helped me understand WHY my LO's just couldn’t do it.
Mine appeared to refuse (wouldn't) but actually just *couldn't* anymore. That's the stage your father may be at.
Basically, as skills fade out it's kind of like the Ask Say Do approach used for children.
Ask: "Can you please shower this morning?" If he cannot, next is
Say: "It's time to wash now". Prompt each step.
Next is having to Do the task together. That quickly destroyed MY brain cells so an Aide was employed.
Luck to you for this next stage.
PS the elder is responsoble to pay for their care needs, including personal care aides
Often, for whatever reason, that works. They are professionals and not so easy to say no to. Just set things up, alert the aide before hand and make yourself scarce.
Personally I would do absolutely nothing for him (that he wanted) unless he bathed but please do know that hygiene is first out the window with depression, let alone dementia and many elders don’t want their kids telling them what to do.
I realize I was lucky and didn’t have to put that to the test. I know each person’s situation is different.