About a month ago Laurette emerged from her shower with a large abrasion on her forehead. She usually does okay in the shower by herself still and I just pop in every 5 minutes or so to make suggestions and to check on her. We never did figure out how she scraped her head in the shower.

Last week I popped in to check on her and she was on the floor with the water running over her on pure hot. She had apparently adjusted the water, not noticed how hot it was, and passed out from the heat. I let her rest a while and then helped her up. She promptly fainted again, bending first at the waist and sending her head straight towards the wall. Now I know how she hurt her head last time! She's only 90 pounds so it was no trouble to break her fall and help her to the floor.

She came to quickly and I dried her off on the floor. After several minutes I tried to move her again and she passed out HARD that time. She completely buckled, her eyes were glazed, tongue hanging out, the whole thing. I hoisted her onto the toilet and she didn't begin to wake for at least a minute. When she finally began to wake she was complaining about being dizzy and tired, which is no surprise.

We took her to the hospital just to make sure it wasn't a stroke or anything else, and she checked out fine. After about 15 minutes she was back to normal, so I think she just cooked herself. I adjusted the hot water heater so that it's less likely to happen again, but I don't think I'll ever trust her in the shower again. This is the third shower related incident and luckily only one of them resulted in broken bones. Unfortunately her shower stall is too small to use a stool comfortably, so we have some changes ahead of us...

At least she's safe for now. That's a HUGE relief.

Jezza,
I'm sorry this is happening. If Laurette, is not safe taking a shower alone I'd say it's time that you have to stay right with her when and if she insists on taking one. Especially since you can't get a shower seat in there. Even with you standing right there it could be tricky. You will have to almost hold on to her the entire time.

There must have been a reason other than the water being too hot because you said she had fainted before. Maybe she had the water too hot that time, too. But you can't take a chance that it won't happen again.

I have faith you'll come up with something to keep her safe. Even if it ends up having to give her sponge baths.

Good luck.

Jezza, I'm glad you got her checked out. It probably was the hot water. I know I had to start staying with my mom during her shower time because I was uncertain as to what was going on when she was in there for 1-1/2 hours and I also noticed she is unable to determine what is too hot as far as water temperature. I have also lowered the water heater temp and luckily I can fit a shower chair in the bathtub.

If I can think of a creative solution to the chair problem, I will post it.

Thank God she didn't break any bones.
Looks like you will be on shower patrol from now on.

Jezza. Sounds like it is time for a very shallow tub, with the pointy things covered, with little rubber duckies, like you would for a child. Try bubbles, it might make it more enjoyable, and some one else must draw the bath, to check the temp, and I suspect help her with the bathing too! I hope she has a tub, my Mom does not, and she is ready to switch too!

No grab bars, no chair, makes me very nervous!

Sorry to hear this happened Jezza. Do you have one of those shower chairs you can put in there? I wonder why this is happening to her all of a sudden. Was her EKG normal? Being that she's only 90 lbs, any new meds could have an effect on her pressure and then the sudden change in water temperature may have pushed her over the edge and caused the pressure to drop, very scary because of the possibility for a pelvic or hip fracture. I hope she's doing better.

Hey Jezza-
When my daughter was younger and starting to become more independent, I had a device that I installed on the bath tub faucet thing (I like the technical terms) that actually shut off the water when it got to a certain temperature. So it was like double protection, lowering the water heater and then having this device. You might check the 'r us stores, probably Babies or Kids 'r us.
Take Care-
Sandy O

Yes, I definitely have to be on a heightened alert any time she's in the shower now.

I changed the shower head and that seemed to help. She had a very low-flow head that put out a fine mist. Even with pure cold you felt like it was steaming up the room and after her showers the walls were literally dripping. With that head everything feels colder, so pure hot steamed up the room but didn't necessarily scald.

I put on a very HIGH flow shower head now. She's been keeping the temperature lower and the room hardly steams up at all now. I've been fussing with the water heater all week trying to find the perfect shower temperature, and I'm going to put even more grippy stuff on the shower floor.

If this doesn't work I'll relocate the shower head so that she can sit in there. Right now there's no way to avoid it hitting her in the face if we put the chair in there.

We do have a tub in a different bathroom, but she will be very disoriented and will need assistance every step of the way. I'd like to avoid the extra chore as long as possible, so for now I'll just keep a very close eye on her. I suppose it's not too different, is it? =-)

Jezza, I just had a thought. What about one of those hand held shower heads? I had one in my shower at my other house and it had a holder that I could adjust, therefore keeping the mist out of Laurette's face. They sit in the holder like a shower head but if you want to take it of and use it by hand you can. I loved it because it made cleaning out the shower easier:)

The head also has a few settings on it like pulsating, mist, ect.

The need to be creative never stops in the AD world!

Snick has a great idea about the hand-held shower head. I used one with Mother and it was a Godsend. She would sit on the chair in the tub and away we would go. It made life easier.

Having Laurette sit on a shower chair/bench, holding on to grab bars and you helping her by using the hand-held shower head - it just may make your life a little easier, too. Hope so.

One thing I learned through all this with my Mom, almost everything has to be re-done or rigged and you can pretty well bet the change won't last long enough before another change is needed. Keeps caregivers on their toes!

Take care, my friend, and I am sure glad Laurette has you.

Joyce