Shared from brainandlife.org.
When Mary Wasser-man’s husband, Albert, was diagnosed at age 81 with Lewy body dementia along with Parkinson’s disease in 2020, she worried about keeping him safe at their home in San Diego. Three years later, in April 2023, he had to be moved to a skilled nursing facility when his health and behavior deteriorated.
While Wasserman has been happy with her husband’s overall care, a new concern has cropped up: frequent falls. For a while, he experienced two to three a week, usually when he got out of bed early in the morning or late at night. “His dementia made him combative, and he refused to use the wheelchair or any other safety precautions the staff offered,” she says. “He has tremors in his arms and hands and what they call a ‘Lewy lean,’ the tendency to lean sideways from the right side of his waist.” It was a constant struggle.