My Dad's Dr. ordered physical therapy for him due to his fall risk. The therapist does a great job of showing the exercises, but after he leaves, Dad won't do anything. He "knows" he won't be walking for much longer without enough muscle tone and he says he is fine with that. At the same time, he says he can stay in his home as long as he wishes. I am responsible for his care (advanced directive) and this just isn't the case. If he can't walk, he can't stay in his home. His wife is in her mid 80s too and cannot take care of him. I have sacrificed enough in my personal life and I cannot do more. I don't know how to explain this to him in a way he understands. He continues to say he is fine. He can't remember 5 minutes at a time! Sigh . . .
Can someone else do the exercises with him on the the days PT does not come? Our PCA did them with my husband. I did them once in a while with him, too, but he liked doing them with the pleasant young PCA better!
Maybe now would be a good time to introduce some in-home help. A few hours several days a week could give Mom a break and get Dad exercising. And also start the process of preparing for the future.
Maybe walking is too overwhelming a goal. But keeping enough strength to be able to transfer from bed to wheelchair to toilet will make his life so much easier going forward that it is worth really working on this issue.
Because of her memory, she thinks she does them every day when, in fact, if I get her to do them a couple times a week, I feel I've accomplished something. Someone has to do them with her and that someone turns out to be me, in our case.
Every day, she complains that her back hurts. Every day I remind her that's because she doesn't do her exercises and doesn't get up, enough. There are more medical issues that are coming up because of her insistence on sitting and slouching all day, every day. Every day, I remind her about all this and she means well, wants to do it, but puts it off and doesn't.
I tried having her keep track of her exercise in a notebook so she'd see that she'd not doing them. I ended up having to keep the log and it only sort of worked.
So, what I'm trying to get across is that it's going to be a struggle. It requires nicely reminding your dad on a fairly consistent basis. Pick your message and repeat it. When there are negative consequences, remind him that it's because he hasn't been doing his exercises.
Maybe the simple message that you repeat is, "Do your exercises so that you can stay mobile; otherwise, you have to move to a nursing home. It's your choice and I'm not going to make you do it if you're okay with having to move to a nursing home."
Past that, I don't know that there's a lot you can do.
One more thing - I find with my mom that if a stranger is having her do something that she does it, where, when I want her to do it, I'm always here so she knows she can put it off (and then just never do it!). So, if I were to hire someone to specifically come and do her exercises with her, she'd feel obligated to do it. If you think your dad would also participate if someone came, then that could be something to consider.
We did notice that Dad took more of an interest in doing his exercises if the physical therapist was a young very attractive woman.... she would tell him she would be disappointed if she didn't see any improvement :)
Of course, Dad stopped doing the exercises once the program was through.... [sigh]
Actually, it's not the number of visits, but a dollar amount cap, is what our PT said. And, it's not easy to extend, according to them (they're an entire PT practice - not just coming from one person).
But I'm not saying that if the person doesn't comply that it couldn't stop, sooner.