95 year old mother falling repeatedly in assisted living

[Anonymous]

95 year old mother was hospitalized again after a fall. The highly rated assisted living facility she is at checks on her every 2 hours at night. They claimed to have checked on her at 2am and she was asleep but they found her on the floor at 3am. There are restraint laws in Virginia that prevent her from being belted into the bed. The staff seems helpful but not overly concerned. Anyone have experience with using fall mats next to the bed to prevent injury? We are starting the process of looking for a night aid to hire to ensure that she does not get out of bed on her own but that may take a week or more to get into place. Any ideas appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I would put a thin mattress on the floor next to her bed.

[Anonymous]

Amazon sells the Vive Fall Mat which seems useful although we never used. Also I assume there are bed rails on your Mom's bed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:95 year old mother was hospitalized again after a fall. The highly rated assisted living facility she is at checks on her every 2 hours at night. They claimed to have checked on her at 2am and she was asleep but they found her on the floor at 3am. There are restraint laws in Virginia that prevent her from being belted into the bed. The staff seems helpful but not overly concerned. Anyone have experience with using fall mats next to the bed to prevent injury? We are starting the process of looking for a night aid to hire to ensure that she does not get out of bed on her own but that may take a week or more to get into place. Any ideas appreciated.

Assisted living is just that. Assisted. It's not 24 care. Yes, you will need to hire someone to warch her. This is a frequent gap issue in the care system, with assisted living encompassing too broad of a spectrum of needs.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps look into nursing care?

[Anonymous]

No bed rails?

[Anonymous]

My husband was in a rehabilitation facility that was also a nursing home, and they didn’t check on him much. He fell too, and he was there for a head injury! They told me to hire an overnight sitter. Who just watches. Expensive, but it’s an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would put a thin mattress on the floor next to her bed.

That sounds like a tripping hazard

[Anonymous]

OP, elderly fall. Elderly fall, especially, near the end of their life. One reason is dehydration. Sometimes this can helped, sometimes not. It's aging. And sometimes the elderly do not drink enough, despite every worker, very family member's best effort to encourage and monitor. Once thing that goes on is the elderly get embarrassed about wetting the bed, losing control of their urine. It's scary for them to get up in the night. They don't want to drink.

She's elderly Op. A lot can be going on. Hug her, love her. You will need to prepare to let go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would put a thin mattress on the floor next to her bed.

That sounds like a tripping hazard

Yeah the assisted living place will never allow this. It’s likely a violation of safety and fire rules

[Anonymous]

This is how my uncle died. He was much, much younger. Went to the hospital for his liver, and fell during the night. They tried to cover it up, he died the next day. But, aunt saw a cut and a bruise on his head. I would not be so nonchalant about this.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s time to transition to more care. We went through this with my uncle. He had six bad falls in a row. Then we had to scramble to find him a spot in a nursing home. We would have moved him sooner, but he had a GF in the same facility and she kept convincing him to stay.

[Anonymous]

The son of one of my elderly neighbors tripped walking out the door of his house and wound up dying of a brain injury. He was only in his late 60's or early 70's when it happened. Before that, he had once come to visit his 90 something year old parents and slipped and fell in the driveway. Dh had to run over there and help him back up.

Falling is serious but I agree with the pp above who said that it happens as people age. Your mom's AL probably calls ambulances all the time for this reason. Once they've been taken to the hospital 'X' amount of times, it's probably recommended that the person be placed in a nursing home for a higher level of care. Just a guess.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, BTDT. You need to transition her to a higher level of care. Fwiw once she's in a skilled nursing or memory care facility, they tend to manage nighttime waking via meds. So it's not necessarily a better outcome from a quality of life point of view, but it's probably better than dying from a fall.

[Anonymous]

Bed rails typically are considered a restraint.

The best solution I have seen to falling out of bed is to remove the bedstead and put the mattress directly on the floor, minimizing the height of any fall. However, this can present other issues depending on the ability of the person to get up from such a low place without assistance.