Stair gates

[Vic10]

Have recently gone to great lengths to move bedroom to downstairs. We are in the lucky position to have a bathroom upstairs and one downstairs and as OH mobility is worsening at quite a rapid pace I thought this was an ideal solution.
However, OH can’t remember where the downstairs bathroom is. I have repeated shown him and taken him and that is fine but every time I nip outside he goes upstairs. I have now barricaded the stairs, this can’t be a permanent solution and yesterday he pulled the barricade out of the way and went upstairs again!
I am now feeling I can’t turn my back for a moment so need a permanent solution.
Any ideas?

 

[Helly68]

Sadly, with dementia there are many ingrained behaviours that I am not sure you can change. I got Mummy (late stage mixed dementia) various types of "sippy" cups, to avoid her throwing drinks on herself, the floor and care home staff. She always unscrewed any lid and used them like an ordinary plastic cup, no matter how much we showed her otherwise.
I think someone also posted about getting a raised toilet seat, that their OH then removed each time they used the toilet. Mummy was very determined and would go so far as to break the mechanism of something like a stair gate, or in her early days where she had good mobility, actually climb over it.
You could try putting a large sign on the door of the downstairs toilet, to make it more obvious. Some people have had success with a red toilet seat, as this is more easily seen. Hopefully others will have better ideas.

 

[Louise7]

@Vic10 I did a lot of research into stair gates when mum's bed was moved downstairs. I wanted to avoid anything that could be a climbing risk, plus her stairs were not a standard shape due to the banister, and her cat still needed to get up and down stairs!

I ended up getting a Baby Dan 'concertina' style solid stair barrier. It worked rally well as I positioned at mum's eye level height which meant that it looked like a 'wall' rather than a gate, plus the cat could get underneath. As mum couldn't see the stairs anymore there were no attempts to go up them, and also no attempts to climb over the gate either due to the height (plus she is tiny). It had a 2-movement release action so was also not easy for someone with dementia to open, plus could be easily folded out of the way if other members of the household/visitors needed to go upstairs. It's a bit more expensive than the standard stair gates (about £40) and is available from places like amazon, argos & John Lewis. You can also get an extension pack for wider staircases. This photo shows how I fitted it:

 

[nellbelles]

My husband was blind and at night was at risk of falling down the stairs the OT came and organised a chest high barrier that dropped in to place..May be worth getting the input of your OT?