My Mom has advanced vascular dementia and is a memory care facility. She is confined to a wheelchair but can use her legs to get around. She sees to have a need to move the chair a lot roaming the hallway and common area over and over. In April she crashed the chair into a door jam and fell against the doorway resulting in a big lump on her head and broken nose. Yesterday she had a similar accident resulting in a baseball sized bump on the forehead and lots of bruising. The emergency room doctor said Washington state prohibits the use of a seat belt. Does anyone know of this is true? Mom only weighs 89 pounds.
Would like to prevent any more such accidents but I don't want to take away her ability to move either. Are there any other steps we can take to prevent these accidents?
One would think someone would come up with something easier and safer to use. Maybe a large pillow high enough that the elder's upper body doesn't cross the pillow and into the door jam. The pillow would need to be attached to the chair somehow. Maybe there is something out there that does work.
There are various kinds of wheelchair cushions that might help in this situation. OT are usually the folks who know about adaptive gadgets, so contact the therapy department and get them working on this problem.
She needs to be in a facility that uses the large dining room as. Common room all day long. Large flat screen, like 60", on wall. Then wheeled to the table with a bird'seye view of the screen and wheelchair wheels LOCKED.
Move her if they can't accommodate that need. Sorry, no more moving on her own.
Eventually what did work, and you can try this with your hubby is to have the nurse/aide place a large pillow under hubby's knees if he is in a geri-recliner [don't know if that would work in a wheelchair]. That worked for my Mom until she was able to wiggle that pillow out from under her knees, it took a long bit of time, but it did give the Staff some relief for awhile.
My Mom's brain thought she could stand and walk, but in reality she couldn't. Again, a lot of falls. Her bed was lowered and fall mats were placed. Ok, she did fall, but not as far. Again pillows came to the rescue. The nurse/aide would tuck pillows in all around Mom which made it quite difficult for her to climb out of bed. Only problem, Mom wasn't able to turn over. Rather have the pillows then her falling.
If there were bed railings, my Mom would be the one who would get her legs all tangled up in the rails, or her head caught between the mattress and the bed rail. Both would be dangerous and even fatal.
Back in the olden days, patients with memory issues were placed in asylums, and at times would be chained to their beds for what the staff was for the patient's own safety. Now a days, that is viewed as being cruel. There seems to be no inbetweens.
Does he have a tilt in place wheelchair Irishgram? That coupled with freqflyer's pillow idea and asking that he be kept by the nurses station might help.