My dad (76) has been in a wheelchair for the past year and a half and isn't motivated to get out of it and improve his quality of life.

He collapsed in 2013 because of a combination of things that he didn't take care of over the years: a bleeding stomach ulcer, a gigantic hernia on one testicle, cellulitis on his right leg that was infected and caused him dementia that lead to his collapse, deteriorating knees from a soccer injury in the 80's that he never took care of that caused him to hunch over with an unsteady gait most of his life where he eventually had to walk with a cane, then two canes and then had to use a shopping cart to get around at the last job he had working at Home Depot in about 2010. A couple of years ago he had cataract surgery for one eye that ended up infected and destroying most of his sight in that eye. After his collapse, he spent about 3 months in the hospital and about 2 months at a rehabilitation faculty before coming back home. He's had two physical therapists come over the past year and uses a caretaker twice a week to take him to his appointments and local senior center. The goal was for him to heal and work on getting back to walking again. He wasn't permanently crippled.

It's now been about a year and a half since he's been back home yet he still uses the wheelchair to get around when he should be up and walking with his walker(s). He's pretty much healed up now, he keeps saying his knees hurt when he transitions from wheelchair to walker, but once he's up he's fine. He also complains about feeling dizzy and afraid of falling. My mother has to keep at him to make sure he does his daily routines, take his medication, remember dates/times of when he show be doing things because he either forgets or conveniently forgets to avoid stuff he doesn't wants to do. He doesn't have Alzheimer's. If he's talking about something he's passionate about, he can be super smart. Other times he behaves like a 9 year old trying to get out of things he doesn't want to do (playing dumb, treat my mother as if she was his overly stern mother). He complains about feeling decrepit, yet doesn't seem to have the motivation or willpower to work hard on getting better. Instead he seems happy as a clam to be in the wheelchair and just spend the day eating, pooping, watching TV, etc. If that's what he wants to do, that's fine except this has put an enormous strain on my mother who planned on my dad getting up and walking again by now. She's tired of doting on him, she's tried of keeping track of all of his daily rituals for him, she's tired of having to yell at him to "wake up" out of whatever delusional stupor he's in. He should for instance be up on the walker and able to get his own cereal, milk, bowl, utensils, etc. to make his own breakfast yet he won't. If my mother challenges him to make his own breakfast, he'll take the path of least resistance and just grab an apple and banana out of the bowl right in front of him. This was the problem to begin with, anytime he has/had health problems he would just lower the bar on his quality of life and adjust to living that way. His arms are atrophying and says it's hard to lift them up. He's gotten himself stuck on the toilet 3 times the past few weeks and I had to lift him off of it. My mother and I have had big blow out discussions with my dad every few months to bring him down to reality, and he says he's sorry and will improve for a couple of days and then go back to his old ways. If my mom doesn't say anything to him about having to do his walking exercise, my dad won't and will be in his wheelchair for 6 hours straight watching TV. Talking with friends and caretakers it's obvious we can't do anymore for him, he has to do for himself. And if this is the kind of life he wants to live, my mother and I discussed putting him in a home. Any advice or suggestions would be great. Hopefully I'm not coming off overly harsh, I was never close to my dad, the way I see it, he did all of this to himself and has plenty of time to be further along with his improvement. And his decision-making these days is hurting my mom.