what type of bed?

[totallyconfused]

My mother is on her own in a double bed. Shes very small and moves around a lot in it, slumps down etc. This morning, her back was facing where she gets in to bed(no support for back). She looked confused. Had she leaned back she would have had bad fall from bed.

Is it a case of get railings for the bed, get her a single bed(we have one in spare room that we could use) or both maybe?

We could put the single bed against the wall and a railing on other side?

If she needs a hospital bed towards the end then perhaps its best to reduce down now and get her used to it?

Shes had a tough January-broke her wrist, shingles, seizure and now cant swallow tablets and some foods are proving tough. She has a lot of jerks.

We raised our concerns with public nurse a couple weeks ago about the bed but she said any changes would have to happen when my mother is ready. Sometimes you cant wait for an accident to happen before making the changes though.

 

[Beate]

Hospital beds are expensive and you don't want to get one if it's not needed. If you want one provided through the district nurses, she will have to be assessed for it first.

Why don't you try the single bed at the wall with a railing first? It sounds like a good solution to me.

 

[Tin]

I did move my mum from a small double to single bed and although it was better for me, not sure it was for my mum. Now I knew she was active through the nights, a lot of turning and moving, but once in the single bed it was really obvious how much night time movement there was. Knees constantly being bashed against the wall, legs hanging over the side. I did use a bed rail but mum just got her legs caught in them and scrapped her skin badly. In the end I put her back in small double and took AnnMac's advice, with bed to the wall I built up the other side I put a long piece of thick rubber foam under the mattress creating a kind of hill so that if she got too close to the edge she would roll back into the middle. This worked for a couple of months and then I had no choice but to move mum back into single bed, soon after this her lack of mobility became an issue, then hospital bed was brought in.

 

[totallyconfused]

I did move my mum from a small double to single bed and although it was better for me, not sure it was for my mum. Now I knew she was active through the nights, a lot of turning and moving, but once in the single bed it was really obvious how much night time movement there was. Knees constantly being bashed against the wall, legs hanging over the side. I did use a bed rail but mum just got her legs caught in them and scrapped her skin badly. In the end I put her back in small double and took AnnMac's advice, with bed to the wall I built up the other side I put a long piece of thick rubber foam under the mattress creating a kind of hill so that if she got too close to the edge she would roll back into the middle. This worked for a couple of months and then I had no choice but to move mum back into single bed, soon after this her lack of mobility became an issue, then hospital bed was brought in.

I had to call ambulance today as my mother went picking at her skin andthere was a lot of blood. Shes ok and didn't need to go to hospital. Their advice was to keep double bed as there is more room to move around but to add rail.