My dad had a stroke 12 days ago. He cannot speak and has right side paralysis. He does communicate with us and cognitive skills appear to be good. However, he "tunes out" when therapy people come by and shook his head "no"yesterday when I asked if he wanted to go to rehab, kind of rolled his eyes like it was useless. He is 68 and was very active before his bypass surgery and stroke (3 days later) and this attitude was very surprising. He has always been a VERY upbeat person, very on the go. I think he is depressed, esp. since he is being fed with nasogastric tube and therapy people have not helped him with going to the bathroom by himself. They did a swallow test yesterday and he could swallow, but even after therapy told nurse to take out tube they left it in (nurse had told me she didn't think he could swallow). I think my dad picks up on this attitude. He had an episode of turning red once when I fed him some pudding, I tried to do it very slow, and he was o.k. after that and swallowed well, but nurse made me stop and reinstituted tube feeding.
Rehab people connected with hospital came by and put on their notes that he was not ready for acute rehab and would not follow directions (although he did part of the time --- unclear whether he could and didn't or just couldn't follow their directions). The medical personnel just seem to have little empathy for his situation. Their notes have caused another rehab facility to turn him down.
They want us to take him to skilled nursing and we are afraid he will really give up then.
They are trying to push my dad out of the hospital but acute rehab will not take him. How can we help him overcome depression and get him on the road to rehab? We asked yesterday for depression treatment and they said they putting in an order for that. He does seem to like it when we read the paper/current events to him.
Any advice will be sincerely appreciated.