“Mary, we must do something about your Mom,” was the comment I was met with when I visited Mother in the first nursing home. “She resists us whenever we try to get her in the shower.”

Getting Alzheimer’s patients to bathe or take a shower can be a challenge.  I discovered what the caregiver thinks is normal bathing practice for the patient may be fearful for them.  Thus, they will resist as Mother did.

I realized Mother was living in her pre-shower days, when she didn’t have this facility.  There was only the bath tub in the farmhouse where I grew up.  In Mother’s childhood home, they didn’t have running water.  They hand pumped the water from a well to the sink in the kitchen.

Mother had used showers in motels, in the little home Father built for their retirement years. However, by the time she was in the nursing home, Mother was in a pre-shower era of ther life.  So when she was expecting a bath (either in a tub or a sponge bath), imagine her shock when she was placed under a shower.

When I looked at the situation from her point of view, I realized why she resisted being given a shower.  So when the Alzheimer’s patient you’re caring for resists something that seems commonplace, take a look at it from their world. 

When I pointed this out to caregivers at the nursing home, we put into place bathing procedures that were more comfortable to Mother.