My Grandma's fall this weekend, and how to keep older adults feeling "useful" as their function declines

Posted Le 24 mai 2016

My grandmother fell this weekend. We were at our family cottage near Kingston, opening it for the season. I was encouraged to see my grandmother looking stronger and than a few months ago. She had taken my advice and now attends a daily exercise offered at her retirement complex. There was a lot of work to be done around the yard and inside the cottage and despite my mom's best efforts to encourage her to "just relax", my grandmother insisted on helping. She didn't want to sit around while everyone else was working. She did some sweeping and tidying inside and then she wanted to do some light gardening. As she was bent over pulling some weeds, she lost her balance and fell backwards. Luckily the ground was soft and she wasn't falling from a height since she was already bent over. She was uninjured (and laughing surprisingly - "I saw that coming. I should have yelled TIMBER!").



After that scare, my mom relegated her to a lawn chair on the deck for the remainder of the weekend. She was feeling left out and guilty for not participating in the annual family clean up. I tried to get her engaged in some tasks that were lower risk, like washing dishes, but my mother was very worried that if she was up moving around she would fall again. My mom is right to worry since the last time my grandma fell my mom had to move to Kingston for 6 weeks to care for her. That experience was a drain on her emotionally and financially. So I do understand her wanting to prevent future falls at all costs.



My question is, how do we find the balance between restricting activities that are beyond an older adult's capacity and maintaining dignity and the feeling of "usefulness". To make the question even harder, how do we find that balance when caregivers' lives and livelihoods would be affected by the older adult's fall?