Clothes

mpjsols

Registered User
Jan 4, 2022
10
0
Having got thru the hurdle of being allowed to keep kitchen and house cleaned, reluctantly as he is always just about to do it, and there are only a few dishes, I now addressing the clothes issue.

I keep asking him to give me his washing, he tells me he has done it/is doing it. I have bought new clothes for him to change so he can Give me the old ones, but just cannot get past this hurdle. I am trying to get some care arranged, and maybe someone who is not me can get thru to him as its going to be a problem/is pretty much a problem.

He is washing okay, but the clothes are to use a welsh phrase, 'hanging'.

Any suggestions of how I can do this without getting somewhere that is going To disturb what to date is still a succeful father son relationship.
 

electra2008

Registered User
May 4, 2019
21
0
Do you live together if so, when he has gone to bed exchange dirty for clean for the next day. Leave them in the same place as you pick them up from.
 

mpjsols

Registered User
Jan 4, 2022
10
0
At the moment, he is doing well and living independently, this is the biggest problem for us at the moment. I think I will just keep pushing the issue, once I can get a process started it should work.
 

My Mum's Daughter

Registered User
Feb 8, 2020
438
0
@mpjsols you could become clumsy and "accidentally" tip something on his clothes but the only real solution for my Mum, was to bring in carers.

If your Dad lives in Wales, then it's important to bring in carers via social services. Welsh Government set a cap £100 a week cap on social care and your Dad could use his attendance allowance to cover part of the bulk of the cost.
 

RuralTownie

Registered User
Oct 11, 2021
27
0
I just had to bite the bullet and tell him that he's starting to pong a bit. We talked about how it's not his fault because it's hard to remember, that he's lost his sense of smell, and that we could come up with a plan to make things easier. So the plan was a complete overhaul of the wardrobe (IE reducing it down to just half a dozen shirts, trousers, etc and sending the rest to charity). Relocating the wardrobe so it faced into the room, removing the doors, and labelling the sections "Clean shirts", "clean trousers", etc. Putting a pair of baskets next to the wardrobe labelled "clean pants" and "clean socks" (and changing all the socks to just one style so we don't have the "is this a pair?" game anymore). Then a big wicker basket labelled "laundry basket - Put your worn clothes in here at the end of the day".

It's by no means foolproof. I can't get him to take his shirts off at night without physically standing there. He'll happily wear the same shirt the following day, and the same socks. He'll even take them off to shower and then put the dirty ones back on. Or he'll get fully dressed prematurely in the night and then go back to bed dressed when he realises his mistake.
So it becomes a morning task. I get him to discard all of last night's clothes, send him to the shower, and then whisk away all the laundry before he has a chance to try and put it back on.

Obviously this is easier to manage because I'm living with him and can try my best to keep him clean and presentable. But, and I think this is very common, he just doesn't understand why he should change out of what looks to him like a clean shirt and thinks sleeping in it and continuing to wear it the next day is perfectly fine.
I get the impression you're not living with him, so it'll be harder for you.

But I'll bet his wardrobe situation isn't helping. If he's anything like my dad, he'll still have every item of clothing he's ever bought. Suits for the office he hasn't been to in decades, trousers that no longer fit, shirts missing their buttons.... It can be overwhelming for someone in their condition, especially in the morning when the fog is still particularly dense. So help rationalise it. Do a big charity sort out so there's something for him to feel good about. Talk about a number of how many of each item he thinks he reasonably needs - "OK, so you need 4 pairs of trousers. Let's put all the trousers on the bed and set aside some you definitely like and fit you well" - then put all the others somewhere hidden for the time being until you're satisfied they really aren't needed.
 

Lynmax

Registered User
Nov 1, 2016
1,045
0
When my mum was at this stage, we found the only was to get her to shower and wear clean clothes was to arrive at her house early before she got dressed. Luckily she had always eaten breakfast in her dressing gown so was in the habit of not getting dressed as soon as she awoke. We had to run the shower, bully her a little into getting in it then lay out fresh clothes on her bed.

There were times when she would swap what we had left out for something unsuitable which caused a few arguments! One day, she put on a fluffy blue dressing gown to wear as a coat as we were going out, I refused to let her wear it and forced her into a rain coat which made her very grumpy. As we were driving to the pub for lunch, we passed a girl wearing a pale blue teddy bear style coat and my mum piped up “ I told you I was wearing a coat, look at her! ”
 

Duggies-girl

Registered User
Sep 6, 2017
3,618
0
Dad stopped washing and changing his clothes because he truly believed that he had a shower every day and clean clothes everyday. Luckily he did sleep naked and left his clothes hanging on his bookshelf every night so I just used to swap them with clean ones in the morning. I lived there so that was quite easy to do.

What helped the most was making sure that all his clothes were more or less identical, half a dozen same colour checked shirts and a couple of grey jogging bottoms and he never noticed.
 

Canadian Joanne

Registered User
Apr 8, 2005
17,710
0
70
Toronto, Canada
I ended up having to tell Mum that she smelled really horrible. Sometimes that helped, sometimes it didn't. She was in a nursing home at the time and was very resistant to any assistance.