Hi All. I've been working with a lady with Alzheimers who still sleeps in a double bed (alone) which is up against the wall and there is limited space. She has 2 carers who help with all transfers. She is still able to follow some direction but takes some time to process the requests. Getting into bed is fine, the issue is the morning. She turns 90 degrees and ends up horizontal in the bed overnight (head towards the wall and the feet by the edge of the bed where she get outs). Carers are struggling to get her to turn on the morning as she takes a long time to wake up. She also removes her pad overnight. Carers are now moving her doing gradual increments, which concerns me because of friction. Slide sheets are difficult to fit due to the overreaching and soiling. I'm concerned about wendy-letts as she is obviously 'active' overnight. And she has fallen from a profiling bed previously and family have said that they do not wish for her to be in one.
I have also consdered Phil-e-slide but again possible that she'd slip out of bed (more slippy than a wendy-lett) and the Etac but concerned that she may move over the 'brake' and again slip.
I feel that i'm at a bit of a loss of any other ideas. Anyone out there have any ideas?
The 2 suggestions i have had so far are phil-e-slide making sure carers are always tucking it in on leaving! and Profling bed, set low to the floor overnight with an etac.
Hi @sharon. We've seen you've had a wide range of advice in our Facebook group Occupational Therapy Community, which is great to see! A few additional comments from when we posted about this on our main Facebook page: "If falling from bed is an issue, the Harvest Woburn ultra low is good. But just have to be aware of entrapment risk between bed and wall."
"Would she tolerate a sleep system to prevent her from turning 90 degrees?"