Showers

nmkjrk91

My DW believes that she showers often but does not. Gets super offended when I mention it. Any thoughts on how to approach the topic?

Timmyd

I was in a similar situation. Here is how I dealt with it. First I had to decide how often was a shower needed in order for me to feel hygiene was a sufficient. For me, I landed on once a week and that seems to work for us. Second I stopped talking about showering. When the time has come, her disposition is neutral, and I have opportunity, then we just shower(it is a team effort). She may sometimes protest but I just move forward like it is happening and stay consistent in my approach. It if often not a pleasant experience but we get it done. When it is over she is always talks about how good it feels to be clean. For me, things fell into place when I stopped trying to plan showers or talk about showering. Occasionally she will bring up the herself and I will jump on the opportunity. Eventually she accepted that showers will happen and she deals with it. Again, it fell into place when I stopped talking about it or trying to plan it with her. Now showers are just thing we do, but don't really otherwise ever talk about.

RetiredTeacher

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/72505/showers

Same problem for my DH. After tracking how infrequently he showered, yet he swore he took one a few days ago, I also decided weekly was a good compromise. We go out to lunch on Fridays so I tell him we are going to get all clean before our date. He seems to accept that we both want to be clean and fresh for our Fun Friday Lunch. Of course he forgets it's Friday and needs to be reminded. So far it's working

Good luck

nmkjrk91

Thank you!!

SDianeL

I just posted this on another post. Hope it helps. I got tips on how to get my DH to shower from the book “The 36 Hour Day” which helped me after his diagnosis. There are several reasons they don’t want to shower. (1) the forgot how (2) they think they just showered. (3) they are afraid to shower (4) they are afraid of falling and (5) they don’t like the feel of the water on their skin. So I told my DH “we” were going to shower 2 days a week.on the shower day I would get everything ready. I had a shower chair and Han held wand. I put his washcloth on the chair and got a hook for the towel. I turned on the shower to make sure the temp was perfect. I got his clothes ready. Then I would tell him it was our shower day and his shower was ready. It worked most days. If he didn’t want to I said we’ll do it tomorrow then and I would try again the next day. I left the door open so I could listen and I picked up his dirty clothes while he showered. Another thing that helped was medication to calm him. He took Risperidone. I know this might not work for some but may help others. The disease is so unpredictable.

tboard

I have the same situation with my husband. He has had one shower in the last two years. He gets very angry when I mention showers. The good news is the condition of being dirty doesn't seem to be life threatening. The bad news is that most days he smells like he lives in a barn. He often wears the same clothes day and night for a week before changing them. I'll admit I stopped fighting with him about showers and clean clothing.