Impossible to help mum

[justloveandlightx]

Grandma is 89 years old, fairly independent but slowly losing her memory and ability to reason.
She has falls and they're getting more frequent, we've told her it would be a good idea for her to wear a watch sensor which will detect if she has a hard fall. She has refused.
She is refusing all aids to help if she falls. She lives but herself and I'm worried that if she falls we won't know about it for ages! What can we do? Any ideas?

My mum is in her nineties and fell in the garden and broke her hip. She'd fallen twice before in the house (so if your mum says she doesn't go outside that's not a good enough reason!) This time when she fell she had an alarm around her neck and if she hadn't pressed it she would have died.

I really hope your mum accepts it's fairer to everyone if she does wear an alarm.

Just a thought - my mum told me (after she fell) that she'd always hoped that if she had a bad fall that she'd bang her head, which would then mean she'd be knocked unconscious and then die without realising what was going on. When she did fall she banged her head, but remained conscious. She had nearly an hour without knowing if she would be found (she couldn't tell whether the alarm had worked) - the fact she kept pressing the alarm shows she really wanted to be found.

It's so frustrating when your elderly parents won't do something simple to protect themselves. I wonder how she was with her own mum.

If she’s dead against a watch/pendant. How about a bum bag and a mobile phone- it’s better than nothing. I have the same with my mum and she did fall, got trapped and was left for 4 hours on the floor. Luckily my aunt had been phoning her and couldn’t get through, so I jumped in the car and there she was. She carries her mobile now, begrudgingly.

How have you phrased it?

mum initially refused an emergency thing because she wanted to die in peace.

it was only when I explained how traumatic I found my injuries - which happened with people who could help - after she fell and hurt her knee, that she realised, it's not about preventing death. It's about not being stuck, injured, for hours, alone.

is it worth explaining that angle? I think sometimes people who have never broken a bone don't realise how bad it can be.

If she's losing her memory and reasoning has she been tithe Memory Clinic yet or had a Care Needs Assessment?

If she refuses, you cannot force her. All you can do is explain your reasoning and wishes. If she still says no, then you could do what I did - mil refused to wear her pendant or watch, so I ended up phoning every night at 7pm and if she didn’t answer, the plan was to ring her neighbour to see if a light was on, if yes, then I would ring the police for a welfare check whilst jumping in the car and doing the 2 hour drive. When she moved into an extra care flat, and still refused to use the alarm or cords, if she didn’t answer the phone, a member of staff would enter her flat to check on her whilst I did the dreaded drive. She used her alarm pendant after she did have a fall and was found in her bathroom attempting to stem the blood flow from a bad cut and with a broken wrist.

My elderly mother refuses to even let me have a key to her flat if something like this happens. She wouldn’t wear a pendant , there’s no point asking her to. Often elderly people just don’t seem to appreciate the worry they impose on others in their stubborn refusal to face facts.