Dementia - Alzheimer"s - Problems That Might Occur in the Bedroom Part II
In part one of this two part article I discussed some of the things in or related to the bedroom that we have experienced with our Mr.
Q who we have had slightly over five months now.
Mr.
Q has been previously diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's disease when he was in his home state.
He now resides with us in our home where we take care of a few other elderly people with problems who cannot care for themselves.
Getting up from bed This is a potential problem, but it has happened oh so many times with Mr.
Q.
We will put him in bed and the next thing we know he is up.
Maybe he will be in the bathroom, in the living room, the kitchen, or who knows where.
It has happened shortly after he went to bed, after he had been sleep an hour or two, or in a few cases after he had been sleep several hours.
This could also happen at 4am or 5am in the morning.
This situation means lots of extra work or hiring someone to watch them at night.
That not always possible or practical.
Need I say more? This could be a big problem.
Ripping off the closet doors This is no longer a big problem.
In fact it is no problem anymore.
Mr.
Q would grab the clothes from the closet and put on multiple sets of clothes.
He would fight you if you tried to remove them or ask him to put on clothes he did not want to wear.
Sometimes we would come in the room to find almost all the clothes from the closet on the floor.
This was a major and consistent problem.
He knocked down the closet doors several times.
Finally I had enough, installed new hinges and felt the anger when he almost immediately knocked both doors down again.
That was enough.
I figured out a way to keep the sliding closet doors locked.
We had to remove all of his clothes and hide them to prevent from seeing them and fighting for them.
I felt proud of my solution, but now we cannot use the closet.
I was afraid to put a lock on the doors due to the ridiculous State regulations that effectively prevent us from doing ordinary things in our home.
Might I mention, our home is no longer a home now that we have elderly residents here.
I won't go into that except to say whoever makes up the rules needs to have their head examined.
Electricity: It's Dangerous This is another potential problem that one would not ordinarily think about.
It happened to me so I will bring it up because it could be a dangerous situation.
Our Mr.
Q, being the inquisitive person that he was likes to grab things.
He also likes to have his own way - no matter what.
Initially we would leave a light on in his room.
He would always get up and turn it off.
It was on a switched circuit so if he did that we could no longer switch the light on/off from the wall switch.
That meant he would be in total darkness and we also could not see in the room or turn the light on from the doorway.
He would always shut the door regardless if we left it fully open, or cracked open only a little.
We solved that by putting a little night light in one of the wall plugs behind a cabinet where he couldn't easily get to it.
That didn't last long and almost immediately he knocked over the lamp on the counter trying to get to the night light.
Many times he would somehow get there and unscrew the bulb in the night light.
Previously he would he would sometimes unscrew the bulb in the lamp on the cabinet.
Finally it came to a head and he took out the bulb in the night light and unscrewed the bulb in the lamp plus turned off both switches.
I went in there one night and in semi-darkness reached to screw the bulb back in.
I reached behind the cabinet and stuck my hand on the bulb - but wait the bulb was missing.
I was so close to putting my finger in the empty socket that I jumped back instantly when I discovered the bulb was missing and I almost got electrocuted by just missing putting my finger into the night light empty socket.
Now imagine if Mr.
Q had stuck his finger there, or in the lamp socket if he had taken the bulb out of that lamp.
It never happened, but it is something to be aware of.
Be extra careful of lamps where the bulbs can be unscrewed by the residents.
They are a hazard I have not heard anyone mention.
I'm not sure how to solve the problem without some serious retrofitting to put an outlet way up on the wall out of the reach of a resident and a lamp up there too.
Now if you have a home where there is a ceiling or high wall light fixture this will not be a problem to concern you.
There are more problems, but I might have to tell how I feel about all the excessive regulations to mention them.
So this will have to do for now.
If you have to care for a loved one with dementia / Alzheimer's be prepared to experience some of these same problems depending upon the specific problems they might have.
Q who we have had slightly over five months now.
Mr.
Q has been previously diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's disease when he was in his home state.
He now resides with us in our home where we take care of a few other elderly people with problems who cannot care for themselves.
Getting up from bed This is a potential problem, but it has happened oh so many times with Mr.
Q.
We will put him in bed and the next thing we know he is up.
Maybe he will be in the bathroom, in the living room, the kitchen, or who knows where.
It has happened shortly after he went to bed, after he had been sleep an hour or two, or in a few cases after he had been sleep several hours.
This could also happen at 4am or 5am in the morning.
This situation means lots of extra work or hiring someone to watch them at night.
That not always possible or practical.
Need I say more? This could be a big problem.
Ripping off the closet doors This is no longer a big problem.
In fact it is no problem anymore.
Mr.
Q would grab the clothes from the closet and put on multiple sets of clothes.
He would fight you if you tried to remove them or ask him to put on clothes he did not want to wear.
Sometimes we would come in the room to find almost all the clothes from the closet on the floor.
This was a major and consistent problem.
He knocked down the closet doors several times.
Finally I had enough, installed new hinges and felt the anger when he almost immediately knocked both doors down again.
That was enough.
I figured out a way to keep the sliding closet doors locked.
We had to remove all of his clothes and hide them to prevent from seeing them and fighting for them.
I felt proud of my solution, but now we cannot use the closet.
I was afraid to put a lock on the doors due to the ridiculous State regulations that effectively prevent us from doing ordinary things in our home.
Might I mention, our home is no longer a home now that we have elderly residents here.
I won't go into that except to say whoever makes up the rules needs to have their head examined.
Electricity: It's Dangerous This is another potential problem that one would not ordinarily think about.
It happened to me so I will bring it up because it could be a dangerous situation.
Our Mr.
Q, being the inquisitive person that he was likes to grab things.
He also likes to have his own way - no matter what.
Initially we would leave a light on in his room.
He would always get up and turn it off.
It was on a switched circuit so if he did that we could no longer switch the light on/off from the wall switch.
That meant he would be in total darkness and we also could not see in the room or turn the light on from the doorway.
He would always shut the door regardless if we left it fully open, or cracked open only a little.
We solved that by putting a little night light in one of the wall plugs behind a cabinet where he couldn't easily get to it.
That didn't last long and almost immediately he knocked over the lamp on the counter trying to get to the night light.
Many times he would somehow get there and unscrew the bulb in the night light.
Previously he would he would sometimes unscrew the bulb in the lamp on the cabinet.
Finally it came to a head and he took out the bulb in the night light and unscrewed the bulb in the lamp plus turned off both switches.
I went in there one night and in semi-darkness reached to screw the bulb back in.
I reached behind the cabinet and stuck my hand on the bulb - but wait the bulb was missing.
I was so close to putting my finger in the empty socket that I jumped back instantly when I discovered the bulb was missing and I almost got electrocuted by just missing putting my finger into the night light empty socket.
Now imagine if Mr.
Q had stuck his finger there, or in the lamp socket if he had taken the bulb out of that lamp.
It never happened, but it is something to be aware of.
Be extra careful of lamps where the bulbs can be unscrewed by the residents.
They are a hazard I have not heard anyone mention.
I'm not sure how to solve the problem without some serious retrofitting to put an outlet way up on the wall out of the reach of a resident and a lamp up there too.
Now if you have a home where there is a ceiling or high wall light fixture this will not be a problem to concern you.
There are more problems, but I might have to tell how I feel about all the excessive regulations to mention them.
So this will have to do for now.
If you have to care for a loved one with dementia / Alzheimer's be prepared to experience some of these same problems depending upon the specific problems they might have.
Source...