Wanting control, but unsafe situations

DahliaFlower

My Mom has 24/7 care in the home by a caregiver thru a home health establishment. My Mom is forgetful, walks with a walker, fragile and physically not stable,

How to handle

Caregiver says to stay on the couch until caregiver comes back from going to the bathroom.  Here she finds our Mom has gotten up and gone to the kitchen in the meantime.  Then, my Mom gets angry that the caregiver is trying to tell her what to do. Everyone thinks it is just a matter of time before she does fall even with a caregiver right there.  Mom wants her independence and doesn't want anyone telling her what to do!  She doesn't want a wheelchair.

She has become more demanding and less patient - when everyone is trying to do their best for her.

Thoughts??

E122333

I'm having the same issues with my grandmother. For a while we were able to work around the aggression with distraction tactics, because scolding often doesn't help anyone long-term. "Hey can I help you?" "Oh, you're a step ahead of me, I was just about to-" 

This doesn't help with the wandering itself, but that's often an unsolvable issue. Gentle reminders carefully worded so they don't feel guilty or like they're a burden. "Let me, you've done a great job of being careful after your hip got broke. I want to take care of this part."

Depending on the person you might have to take a more difficult approach, the best thing you can do is remember that if they were in the right state of mind, they would not fight the way they do. Inevitably we got a few bed alarms like hospitals use and put them under everywhere she sits, blocking off the space around her chair/bed once she was down so it would take longer for her to stand than it will for us to get to her. Putting them behind/half on the seat so major movement makes it go off before they're quite on their feet- they also act as distractions from whatever your LO was initially trying to get up and do.