Mom refuses to shower. Any advice?

I remember reading on alz.org that, at some point, dementia patients may begin to fear the sound and velocity of running shower water. Perhaps a bath option? She may refuse that, too, but maybe it's worth a shot.

You might check and see if the doctor will prescribed home health care, especially an occupational therapist to come in and specifically work with her to make sure she can bathe safely. It could be: a safety issue, getting cold too easily, to tiring, hard to breathe in the humid air, or psych resistance to getting wet all over (a dementia thing). An OT can help her overcome most of these issues.

My mother-in-law did the p.t.a. method in the sink for YEARS and after some investigation, found out it was because she was afraid of falling in the tub. So we like you did, made the shower safer for her. We took off the shower door off and put up a curtain. Got a shower chair that spanned from the toilet to inside the tub so she could scoot from one seat to another easily, and a shower wand so she'd never have to stand up. And when she STILL refused to try it, I asked her to try it out on a 'practice run' with all her clothes on etc. That's what did the trick for her. She got to practice moving from the toilet into the tub with her clothes on, and saw how easy and safe it was going to be. After going thru the motions a few times, she started telling me how much she enjoyed sitting with the warm water running over her shoulders etc. Whew!!