Walking downstairs

Sherry CO

My mom spends all of her days upstairs because she is afraid to ask down the steps. We try & explain that we will help her & we won't let her fall. She won't do it. We got a chairlift & she's too afraid to ride it. She gets so sad because she wants to go for walks, (in a wheelchair), but she won't come down the stairs. She's pretty deep in alz. Any suggestions?

star26

We had this issue with my Dad. He was only moderate stage. It took at least 3 weeks for him to try it. During that time all of us used the chairlift when going up and down - it was in his line of sight from his bedroom so he could see us using it and we also had him come to the top of the stairs and watch us riding it, without putting any pressure on him to use it. We would talk about how much we loved using it. We got him to agree to just sit in the chair but not go anywhere and I think after that he reluctantly agreed to try. We put a lot of attention on the seatbelt and one or maybe even 2 of us walked right along side of him and held on to the chair as it went down. Eventually he was operating the controls himself but I think we did it the first few times. After all the bother and money of installing the chair lift I could not believe it when my Dad refused to use it and I was also surprised that he was afraid of falling from it. I hope you can overcome this with your Mom. It ended up being a lifesaver for us. Sorry I don’t have any better ideas. 

M1

Any chance she'd let you carry her down with her face covered or eyes closed? Like putting blinders on a horse?