Dealing with negativity and refusal

[kwaker5]

I know I can't make my mum (80 and widowed) do anything but all gentle suggestions are met with refusal and negativity. Should I just give up?
I went with her to buy a walking stick after she fell over, she won't use it 'until she needs to'.
She's got balance issues and is unsteady on her feet so I suggested a you tube video with some basic balance rehab exercises. She did them for a week but they 'haven't made any difference'. I did point out that they need to be done daily forever and that they might just stop things getting worse.
She's really hard of hearing. Unless you are in the same room facing her, she doesn't respond to conversation. But she won't go for a test. Has TV subtitles on all the time.
House is cluttered and dirty with out of date food, etc. I stopped mentioning this years ago after I removed all the out of date stuff from a cupboard and fridge, told her why and she the just put it all back (we are talking jars of Branston that were 10 years out of date). It's so cluttered, you can't clean (another thing I no longer mention).
I don't live close enough that I could provide any useful regular help but she would probably refuse it anyway.
It's reached the point where I dread going to see her because the state of everything gets to me but there is nothing I can do about it.

My parents’ whole house is a trip hazard. Now my mum has dementia she is clinging to possessions more than ever. I’ve given mentioning. I suspect that eventually it will be flagged or my mum will have a fall because of the clutter. It’s not worth wasting my energy on something that’s never going to change.

Badgering your mum obviously isn't working and continuing to do it isn't going to get a different result. Her accepting disability aids (like a walking stick or hearing aids or even having a cleaner come in) means she has to accept that she's deteriorating (or at least has reached a new phase of old age). And that's not easy for many of us. If you are concerned about her out-of-date food, why don't you just surreptitiously cart a little of it away with you each time you visit, without telling her? As for the fall hazards, I'd just move a few out of the way each time you visit, but do it without drawing her attention to it. It, unfortunately, is going to have to come to a point where she has a fall or some other incident where an outside agency or health person tells her she has to do something (or she comes to accept it herself). Are you her only relative? If there are others, you can perhaps come up with a strategy amongst yourselves to keep her as safe as you can for as long as you can. Good luck. You're just at the start of this difficult journey with her.

Dad’s not doing too badly but didn’t want a fall alarm despite being 85 and living alone…. He then got himself locked overnight in the loo and was freed by a combination of neighbours and the fire brigade. I raised the topic again and he said, “I hear you, when the time comes…”. I said it wasn’t negotiable and signed him up. He did a bit of bitching about it but all his friends told him it was an excellent idea!

For the food, I would just surreptitiously remove some.
How close are you to your mum? My dad is very stubborn but will occasionally relent and change things because he doesn’t want us to worry.

Sympathy. It's all rather shit.

Anyway.
She's hard of hearing and unsteady on her feet, so you can just throw out out of date food. If she's in another room she might not even hear you do it. Put it outside immediately in a big old wheelie bin, and even if she works out what you've done, she can't retrieve it.

Should she have the brass neck to ask if you know what happened to the three year old mayo, you can say, "I threw it out because I don't want you to die of food poisoning" and refuse to discuss it further.

There's not that much you can do. It's hard to come to terms with that. Venting helps - the Cockroach Cafe thread here is good for that.

I totally understand where you are coming from, although my mum had retained all her marbles, but she was a war bride, and got married in September 1939, so nothing was wasted and everything was kept, just in case

My mother worked until she was past 80... because she wanted to, and would give the money to the next door neighbour who would pay him, however this was handed to him in a used envelope and she collected old envelopes for this purpose and placed them under a sofa cushion. When I sat on said cushion, I wobbled because there were so many there and I then found them under the cushion... we got it down to six! As to out dated food, surrepticious removal worked, on the basis if she had not wanted it for over a year, she would not notice and she didn't. We also noted that china was getting dusty, so with my sister we would all do a kitchen Spring clean, saying everything gets washed whether it needs it or not, and that worked well because we were all there togther and she bossed us about.

We also realised that her sight was going, so this had to be addressed, too.

If she has agency, there’s much you can do. Cajole, encourage, use your influencing skills, lol, but if she won’t change that is her right. I’d defo do something about out of date food though. My mum was ridiculously stubborn and I am sure she kept ancient sauce bottles just to stress out my sister, lol. I came over one day and just chucked them out. Oops, sorry mum, done now, I don’t want you getting ill…

Thanks for the replies. It is hard to accept there's nothing you can do to help. I feel as though there it will take some incident (falling and breaking something or a health problem) before things change.
I must not be like this when I am her age!

@kwaker5 sympathy. Please join the army of us in similar situations with a vast amount of knowledge and sympathy over at

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/5543019-cockroach-cafe-summer?page=23

Thanks, will do

I think accepting that you can do very little is the way to go. My mother is 88, has fallen several times, will not have a falls alarm; the mouldy food in her fridge, will not allow anyone to clean it out; wears stupid shoes that she slips in, will not change them . She is stubborn, negative, self obsessed and refuses to be proactive about a future she does not want to face. I’m sad, compassionate, frustrated, resentful and resigned all at the same time.