He’s had 2 falls that I know of lately: one on the 12th which led to a skin tear on his elbow and one – more a tumble than a fall – today. In neither case was I informed, which is very disturbing.
In both cases he sustained only minor injury. Once he got up in the night and they found him down the hall, probably searching for a bathroom ( yes there’s one in his room but his sense of space is pretty well non-existent.)
As for the one today, I suspect sleepiness as a contributing factor since he is often needing a nap and not getting it. And this evening he showed signs of back pain and was barely walking, very crooked, although he was in a good humor.
In any event one of the caregivers brought out a wheelchair, and I said, They tell me he won’t use that.
“Huh? sure he will- I use it often with him when he’s unsteady. You just have to jolly him along and stay with him” — which of course is a terrible problem with 2 caregivers and 17 patients most of whom would benefit from extended human contact beyond the physical necessities. The allotment, I have heard, is 15 minutes a day each.
In any event he sprawled on the couch with me for awhile, snored a bit and chatted a bit, and got lots of love talk and happily appreciated hugs and kisses. Then he decided we had to go and struggled up, with evident pain.
I pointed out the wheelchair and asked if he wanted to sit there. To my surprise, the answer was “Sure,” and he did.
Then to my delight we tore up and down the halls, round and round, at breakneck speed, himself gripping the sides of the chair like the steering on an airplane, controlling where and when we went by paddling with his feet and only pausing in momentary confusion when I pointed out an alternative to a narrow passage. Even did a couple of wheelies which seemed quite intentional to me.
As we barrelled down the hall he was singing. I said, “Hey, slow down, you’re going pretty fast,” to which the response was a cheerful “Yep, at least 60!”
CaringCV 