By J.T. O’Donnell
I recently got a frantic call from my friend Sherri. Her grandmother had fallen and was in the hospital. She was very upset. Why? She and her mom were blaming themselves for her grandmother’s injury.
Here’s why:
While grandma had been adamant about living in her home of 40 years all alone, at 86, she was really not in a position to be doing so. The house was equally old and full of tripping hazards. Yet, Sherri’s grandma was a proud, head-strong woman who insisted she was living in her house forever. So, Sherri and her mom gave in to grandma’s request and set up a buddy system where they took turns checking in with her every several hours throughout the day. A system that had worked for a while, until the day the wires got crossed.
7 Hours on the Floor…With a Broken Hip
On the day that Sherri’s grandmother fell, a bad snowstorm had hit unexpectedly, making the day hectic. She had assumed her mother was checking on grandma. Unfortunately, her mother thought Sherri was doing the same. As fate would have it, grandma fell when nobody was checking in, and ended up 7 hours on the kitchen floor with a broken hip. She couldn’t get to a phone, and thus, sat on the cold floor, waiting for someone to finally come find her. Hence, Sherri and her mom’s intense feelings of guilt about the miscommunication.
Grandma’s Reality: 5 Weeks in a Hospital & the Need to Rely on Family Heavily
5 weeks later, Sherri’s grandma is finally getting out of the hospital – an expensive price to pay for her fall. But, not nearly as costly as the fact she can no longer live alone. She must move in with Sherri’s mom, and Sherri will have to take an even more active role in her grandma’s daily care when her mom (who works full-time) can’t be there.
3 Lessons Learned the Hard Way
My friend Sherri says this experience has taught her three things:
1) Having a more fool-proof way to keep an eye on grandma would have saved Sherri, her mom and her grandmother a lot of pain, heartache and guilt.
2) Grandparents are not always right. As adult children, it’s important to override wishes when their safety is in danger.
3) Choosing not to take control and put a good, inexpensive alarm system in place for a senior living alone can in result in a very costly injury.
The only silver-lining to Sherri’s experience is she was willing to share it with others who have aging parents living alone. As a result, I have since had a discussion with my mom and my in-laws about what happened to Sherri and her family. It definitely helped us open up the dialog about the need for them to have security systems in their own homes. I hope you will make Sherri’s willingness to share her experience worth it by doing the same.
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[...] 9 Reasons 30 Minutes of Fall Prevention Education Could Save Lives In Uncategorized on April 21, 2010 at 4:15 pm A friend of mine recently found her grandmother had been lying on the floor for 7 hours with a broken hip. The experience hurt her entire family – financially, mentally and physically. [...]