![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2019\/04\/Disabled-Wheelchair-Vehicle-Disabled-Vehicle-798420-1024x680.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s the latest in the \u201cJane the Actuary has aging parents\u201d saga:\u00a0 wheelchairgate.<\/p>\n
Dad, as it happens, now has a physical therapist coming in to the apartment.\u00a0 It\u2019s not entirely clear how long this lasts before they say, \u201che\u2019s not going to improve,\u201d but so far the therapist has also switched him to a different walker (the old one was a medical-type walker that was jury-rigged to have 4 wheels rather than 2 wheels and two tennis balls) because she said the original one wasn\u2019t safe, and the rollator-walker is too risky because he seems to be unable to learn to put on the brakes to use it safely.\u00a0 She also arranged a transport-type wheelchair rather than an aide borrowing a wheelchair to take him to his memory-care sessions \u2014 and Mom had a fit.<\/p>\n
A transport wheelchair, you see, is designed solely for being pushed.\u00a0 Looking online, I saw explanations that a transport wheelchair is intended exactly for people who are able to walk, but tire easily.\u00a0 It\u2019s easier to take along somewhere and use it, say, if you\u2019re out and about and covering greater distances than someone can walk \u2014 so, the circumstances in which we had in the past borrowed a wheelchair from the Senior Center Lending Closet when my parents had come to visit so that we could go places together, even if just a walk at the nature center.<\/p>\n
But Mom objected \u2014 at first, we thought, because it appeared to signal, to her, a lesser degree of competence.\u00a0 \u201cHe won\u2019t be able to wheel himself with it!\u201d she objected, even though it appeared to be patently unrealistic to expect that he would do so with a standard wheelchair anyway.\u00a0 At any rate, in all the times that we\u2019d gotten a (standard) wheelchair for him so he didn\u2019t have to walk longer distances, I could not picture an instance in which he\u2019d used the wheels to move about, even for a short distance.\u00a0 Besides, I had a conversation with the therapist who said that with a\u00a0 standard wheelchair you had to remember to set the brakes and she didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be able to do that.\u00a0 Still, I thought with a follow-up call of \u201cif you get a transport wheelchair, [my sister who lives nearby] can put it in her trunk when she takes Dad somewhere,\u201d she\u2019d be persuaded.<\/p>\n
Except that in that follow-up call she voiced her real objection:\u00a0 \u201cif Dad has a transport wheelchair, I\u2019d have to push him.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not going to do that!\u201d \u00a0 She acknowledged that for the short distances she walked with Dad, through the walkways to the community restaurant, he uses his walker, and there\u2019s no plan for him to cease doing so, and that the only plan for the wheelchair is for it to be used when someone on staff escorts him somewhere \u2014 to the memory-care mornings, or an appointment, or whatever.\u00a0 (If Dad eventually becomes unable to walk at all, or only very short distances, I imagine the type of wheelchair would be revisited entirely.)\u00a0 But she couldn\u2019t get past that.<\/p>\n
Does she think that this is all bait-and-switch, that if she accepts a transport wheelchair into her apartment, that the staff will say, \u201cwhy don\u2019t you bring Chuck to his memory-care-group time today?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t think anyone there imagines that she has a level of physical ability that would enable her to do so.\u00a0 Or does she not even have enough of an ability to reason soundly to think that, vs. an ill-defined \u201cthey\u2019re going to make me push him\u201d?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tremendously challenging to watch this play out and try to navigate that line between being unwilling and being incompetent to do something she ought to do.\u00a0 Over and over again \u2014 she is not physically incapable of doing X, Y or Z, but she is either incapable of recognizing that it needs to be done, or perpetually intends to do it \u201clater\u201d due to impaired executive function, or is unwilling to do so. \u00a0 (The doctor suggested she might have had a stroke that wasn\u2019t noticeable at the time, and, yup, these are some of the symptoms of vascular dementia, where memory loss isn\u2019t as significant as with Alzheimer\u2019s.)\u00a0 So we\u2019re trying to figure out how to \u201cprogram her\u201d into a routine from a distance.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s not easy.\u00a0 How do you work around the deficits of a person who appears willful and stubborn and uncooperative, and maybe just truly is<\/em> so, but more likely only appears so because that\u2019s how her deficits manifest themselves, because as far as she presents herself, and most likely as far as she is even aware, she is fully capable of everything that needs to be done, but just hasn\u2019t gotten around to it?\u00a0 And how do you navigate your way through, \u201cwell, she was never particularly organized and on-top-of-things in the first place; it\u2019s just worse now\u201d? \u00a0 Where is the line between \u201cmom won\u2019t do X\u201d and \u201cmom can\u2019t do X\u201d?<\/p>\n So for the time being my sister will take one more crack at persuading her to accept the transport wheelchair, and if not, the therapist will get a standard wheelchair for Dad, figuring now it not (yet) the time for this particular battle to escalate.<\/p>\n So how was your weekend?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image: \u00a0https:\/\/www.maxpixel.net\/Disabled-Wheelchair-Vehicle-Disabled-Vehicle-798420.\u00a0 Yes, this isn\u2019t a transport wheelchair after all.\u00a0 But it\u2019s public domain.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So here\u2019s the latest in the \u201cJane the Actuary has aging parents\u201d saga:\u00a0 wheelchairgate. Dad, as it happens, now has a physical therapist coming in to the apartment.\u00a0 It\u2019s not entirely clear how long this lasts before they say, \u201che\u2019s not going to improve,\u201d but so far the therapist has also switched him to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[814,58,939],"class_list":["post-13429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aging","tag-family","tag-personal"],"yoast_head":"\n