My mother-in-law is 85 years old and I am her caregiver. She picks her nose in front of family, friends. Several have asked her to stop doing that because it grosses them out, she will stop for a few minutes and than continue. It's to the point that I can't have people over for dinner because she will go and pick up food with her hands, no one will eat from whatever plates she gets food from. I have kindly asked her to stop but it seems she doesn't care. Please help?
I don't know how to stop this, but I CAN tell you how to make it continue for sure and that is to make a big deal of it. Sorry about that.
Good luck.
Perhaps you could feed your mother in law first and have one of your family sit with her in the living room while the others eat. It may help to explain to your family at least that she can't help doing this, which I'm guessing is the case.
You may also want to think about placing her food on her plate first, then have the others serve themselves away from the table so there won't be any serving plates at the table at all. While she may use her hands to eat her own food off her own plate, at least she won't be taking it off serving plates.
If she does the nose picking at the table, just tell her outright, 'mom, please stop picking your nose'. Or sit next to her and manually stop her without having to say anything.
The brain is a mysterious organ that controls our entire being. At some point, we may all find ourselves picking our noses in front of our relatives and friends but unable to do anything about it. This is why as caregivers, we must take into account how we would feel if we were in that position and what we would want others to do to help us.
Also her OCD can come with depression. One way to deal with it -- to redirect, take right vitamins/meds and keep her hands busy.
Watch Teepa Snow on u-Tube and learn how to recognize those problems and how to deal with that behavior.
I had to get a tiny battery operated clipper to cut the hairs out of my nose!!
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