Jeff has been doing some very pronounced forward leaning in his chair, pretty constantly for a few days. I remember seeing this same postural oddity in another resident, now deceased, in her decline. It doesn't appear to cause him any discomfort, so I'm not worried about it, just curious whether anyone else's spouse has shown this behavior.
Yes, my dh leaned forward when he walked - chin almost on his chest and looking at his feet. Sitting in his chair his chin rested on his chest and he drooled. During late stage.
For lack of a better word I called it "head drop". You can google head drop and see pictures of similar stances.
What I'm talking about is leaning forward at the waist, so that as he sits in his chair he can touch the floor. To give him juice this afternoon the caregiver had to use a straw and stick it in his mouth from underneath.
When he was still able to sit in a chair, my dh did the same thing. Sometimes he would lean so far over, the rest of his body would follow and he would gently roll on to the floor.
Yep, Emily, this is a new development for Steve too. He CAN sit back in the chair when I coax him to or gently push. It just doesn't look like a comfortable position to me--there's no support for the back.
my DH does this regularly too, leaning either forward backward or to the left, never right. hospice dr says it can be from balance issues, a small stroke or tia or medicine induced. drs see this regularly in dementia patients so its not uncommon. there are other threads about it here will see if I can locate any. mine goes thru periods of leaning then it goes away til next time. all we are doing is propping him up on the leaning side so they don't fall while seated. I have a tray geri chair and it keeps him in safely. I know NH wont use the trays or belts so its hard to find a way to keep them safe. having floor mats around them may help just in case they fall while seated.
Sounds like Jeff has Pisa syndrome: A condition in which there is sustained involuntary flexion of the body forward and head to one side and slight rotation of the trunk so the person appears to lean like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.The Pisa syndrome is an adverse effect (a side-effect) of some medications. It occurs sometimes following the long-term use of narcoleptics (drugs used to treat schizophrenia) or cholinesterase inhibitors (a class of drugs used to treat Alzheimer disease).
My DH leans so far to the side that I was afraid he would fall out of the chair while eating dinner. I finally got smart and now have him sit in a dining room chair with arms. The forward lean is in his recliner chair. He spends all afternoon bent forward to untie his shoes and asking me to retie them. Maybe its not about the shoes but about the forward lean, and he just unties them because they are there.