Mom is 91 and her body hasn't been immersed in water in a number of years. She lives (somewhat) independently in a HUD subsidized "over 62 year" building that only has a regular tub/shower, but no walk in ability. She uses a walker to every location in the small apartment due to stability issues and has no ability to get in and out of the tub. She has an aide that comes 3 times a week and she, and we, have tried to get Mom to let "Mary" assist her with this process. She flatly refuses and says that she does clean herself (using both a washcloth and aloe wipes, which I purchase in large quantities) and everyone does agree that she does not have a body odor issue. She is also of European descent (she's French) and claims that she never bathed every day at any point in her life. The aide massages lotion into her legs as they are very dry (no surprise) but my other concern is that there is never a full sloughing off of the dead layers of skin that must be accumulating. I have seen a lot of posts that say that many elderly do not want to bathe so this doesn't seem like a particularly unusual problem but I wonder how others have dealt with this when the elderly person absolutely refuses to do this, even with assistance? My mother does have fairly advanced dementia.
Your mom will be fine with using wipes.