How to Talk about Shoes

Smilescountry

Hello!  My parents are in assisted living, Dad with Alzheimer's and Mom with mild dementia.  My dad has foot problems due to arthritis, high arches, and sport injuries, so he has custom made insoles with cut-outs to prevent ulcers on the balls of his feet.  Due to the high arches, we are limited on shoe styles (slip-ons don't work well).  Dad still dresses himself, but the shoes are a problem.  He can no longer tie a shoe, so I found a nice velcro shoe with the same type of sole as his tie shoe and have put the custom orthotics in it.  It is a battle, even with experienced memory care staff, to get Dad to keep his insoles in his shoes.  In addition to that, he has been forcing the tongue of his new shoes into the toe, and he insists that his velcro shoes do not have a tongue.  He has become verbally combative about his shoes and will not allow anyone to "make the shoes more comfortable" for him.  I will ask his podiatrist Thursday about appropriate shoe alternatives and will talk to the neurologist in a couple of weeks about the cognitive changes.  However, is there a routine that could be used that might work to help Dad get his shoes on correctly or to get him to accept help when needed?  Thanks.

harshedbuzz

SC-

I'm confused.

Are your parents in assisted living or a memory care facility? Or are staff from the secure memory unit being called in as back up after your dad melts down over the shoes?

Depending on where he is in terms of progression, he might not be able to learn to use a different style of shoe. You might have better luck ditching the Velcro and going back to a lace-up oxford. Or maybe try something like a Sketchers Slip-in shoe. That said, when my dad was in MC, he mostly wore his slippers.

IME, train MC staff can usually cajole their residents into cooperating, but it might take them a few weeks to gain trust in introducing new routines. 

HB

Quilting brings calm

I am guessing that the special orthotic isn’t needed unless he is wearing shoes. Can you and the staff live with him just being in non slip socks for inside use?   The kind they have  you wear in the hospital?   Just ditch the shoes as much as possible in order to avoid the battles.  

My mom has various foot comfort  problems.   She sometimes  just gives up and goes to the dining hall in her socks. Nobody says anything to her about it. 

BassetHoundAnn

Is your dad pulling the insoles out of the shoes because his feet are not comfortable? 

Maybe he's pushing the tongue of the shoe into the shoe because he no longer understands how to put his shoes on. 

At a certain point my mom could no longer manage the Velcro on her shoes and we had to go with slip-ons. 

We went through lots of different types of shoes and many podiatrist visits during my mom's first years with us. Trying to find something she could put on herself and something that was comfortable for her proved nearly impossible. 

Shoes without backs like clogs or mules are a big no because they can be a trip hazard. 

Now that she's in memory care she wears mostly slippers or slipper-socks. Occasionally the staff gets her into slip-on shoes but she pulls them off before the end of the day. 

I often find other residents' shoes laying around memory care. Like tonight. There was inexplicably a single man's slip-on shoe in my mom's laundry basket. I think it's a continuing battle for everyone. 

mommyandme (m&m)

What about changing the laces on his favorite shoes to the elastic stretch kind that either have a coil or stopper in the last eyelet?  I tried to post a link but it wouldn’t go through. Look for “no tie shoe laces” or “elastic shoe laces”.

Smilescountry

Thanks, Everyone. To clarify, my parents are in a smaller assisted living place that provides memory care. It is a lovely place and does a good job of taking care of residents, but Dad is in a difficult stage right now. He is strong and mobile, but is well into the moderate stage and not too far from the more advanced stage. He has to wear his shoes with the custom orthotics because when he doesn't he gets bad bleeding cracks and ulcers on his feet. I take him to the podiatrist every two weeks just to keep it all under control. If he were to wear slippers or slip on shoes, his feet would also crack open, so we are very limited. We tried the elastic shoestrings, but they do not provide the support that his foot needs. Even if he could wear slip-ons, his arches are so high that it would be difficult to get his foot in the shoe. He has the strings on his tie shoes so knotted that they are pretty much useless! We just saw the podiatrist a few days ago, and he said that we needed to get the tongue of the shoe tacked to the shoe itself, which I did. It took Dad a couple of days to agree to put on the shoes, but he finally did, and things are going much better now. I took some of his extra shoes home. At first, he didn't want to put the velcro shoes on because, in his mind, they were his "mud shoes" from home that should never have come to his beautiful, new home. However, he is now wearing them and is starting to become more agreeable to letting the aides check to make sure the inserts are in his shoes. Dad has always done things for himself, so he messes with all kinds of things. He chipped the plaster outside his room trying to hang some pictures on the wall (not sure what he used), he has broken his wastebasket and two clocks, we had to get him a new watch because he broke his other one trying to wind it, and the list goes on. He is just trying to be helpful. He knows that the tongue in his shoe goes up, but he doesn't have the coordination to make sure that it stays in position when he puts his shoes on. And then, because he knows that the tongue goes in a certain position, he is convinced that is where it is, and no one is going to mess with it! He is still aware enough to sense when someone is trying to get him to do something different, and he doesn't "forget" things. Rather, he just gets things all mixed up. Three years ago, my dad broke his back in five places, so going barefoot is bad for that, as well as for his feet. I would love to just pull out some slippers, but that isn't going to happen right now for the reasons that I have already listed. And then there is the fact that my dad always has to be "classy," and stocking feet and slippers just don't go over well. I would dare say that he is the best dressed resident there. 😊 The good news is that Dad is now wearing the velcro shoes and is letting the aides help him with them. He told me that he might as well do what they say because he wasn't going to get them to leave him alone any other way! (He does love the staff, which helps.)

HollyBerry

It sounds like you made some progress! My mom insisted in wearing sandals, year round, the old lady sandals that she bought from a catalog. She had them in every color and when we cleaned out her room, she had about five more pairs that had never even been worn. My brother did everything he could, including podiatrist visits, special sneakers, orthotics, knee braces, you name it, and she would agree when he was there and later toss his expensive efforts to the back of the closet. She was hospitalized and then spent time in rehab during her last year, and they wouldn't let her wear the sandals, and told me to just take them all away and replace them with the sneakers my brother bought for her. Suddenly it wasn't an issue any more - she had progressed past caring, and it was a little sad to see her in the sneakers without a fuss.

I'm glad your dad loves the staff and wants to please them! I bet they love him, too.

mommyandme (m&m)

Smilescountry, thanks for the update. Glad that bump in the road has been smoothed over a bit.

Smilescountry

Yes, a bit. I took them out to eat this afternoon, and Dad was sitting in a chair in his stocking feet in his apartment. He had his two pairs of shoes out and was complaining about them being too small. The pair that he was trying to put on had THREE sets of insoles in them, and he wouldn't let the nurses or aides help him. However, he was more than happy to let me fix the problem. 😉.

Smilescountry

By the way, we see his podiatrist in a couple of weeks, so I will be talking about the insole problem with him.