Or neither.
Excellent call. It's by the (intelligent) posing of questions that the real dimensions of the problem evolve. Excess toilet paper does seem to be the root cause of the problem, even though the OP did not, which is why I asked the question I did. I think it's always germane to explore the edges of potential problems and wish our government did more of it. Turns out that "walling up" the Mississippi upstream with dams, dikes and levees meant that the water volume was not being reduced downstream. That normally happens in upstream flood plains but more and more of them are being close off from the river. Thus more (and faster and deeper) water is hitting downstream than ever before. Just an example of unforeseen or unwanted consequences.
Either one is NOT a good outcome, but neither is a soaked floor. You could measure the amount of TP used by unrolling, marking and re-rolling, but only those who aspire to Asperger's Syndrome would likely go that far. But the comments about what might happen about limiting TP availability are good ones. People used to think baby monitors were some newfangled, nonsensical gadgets without much use but now they're a commodity. I suspect as the Boomers start down the road to their eventual demise, there will be a lot of technology applied to situations like this. There have been some really interesting experiments being done about the elderly and "elder care" robots. They appear able to seriously help with caring for the elderly patients, and their capabilities are amazing. Reports say people can become very attached to them.
I'll start a different thread and post the URLs when I have the time because I am (obviously) interested in everything possible to keep home life for the Alzheimer patient as normal as can be while also insuring it's that home life for others is not seriously affected.
Lots of rubber-backed rugs really kept the flooding damage down. The behavior *usually* involved one overflush with a very angry, confused and embarrassed person standing over the mess. It's like all the "joy" of potty training but worse. Sadly it's very common. Knowing how yucky such cleanups can be, I'd still be looking for the toilets I see on HGTV that can flush a bowl full of golf balls knowing that might not solve anything. It could easily be that the paper just isn't getting wet enough. Do you know, roughly, how much TP goes in? A little six inch metal machinist's ruler should be able to give you some rough idea of what you're dealing with.
I'd probably leave that as option 2. IIRC, OP has said no other user clogs, so the slow refill adjustment *should* buy him something. A chime that alerts him to when she uses the loo might be very useful in beginning a monitoring period of heightened alert in case she compensates for the low flow rate by extending her time in the bathroom. I think we're still missing some of the parameters of the problem but that they'll emerge via the ongoing discussion. Is the TP not getting wet enough to go down between flushes? Is there SO much of it in the bowl that doesn't matter? Does the OP want to be alerted when she makes her first flush so that he can escort her out and supervise the rest of the flushing process manually?
Sounds like a good plan of action. I'd also try to figure out the SPP ratio (Square per Poop) of TP consumed. That's going to be hard behavior to change, as you note, and it's the process I believe you're most concerned with interrupting (in the long run, anyway) because she's as clean as she's going to get (we hope) long before she's finished wiping. As has been noted, if it's merely repetitive behavior, stopping it midway might not make any difference. But if she's doing it until she feels clean, then it could be hands or towels that take over, as noted. That's clearly an unwanted outcome.
I'd build a small radio transmitter to insert in the TP spool that counted revolutions and relayed them to my home automation system. After 25 revs, I'd have a Flood-stop electric valve wired into the TP to prevent refill for perhaps 10 minute. I'll bet some engineering students could design one.
Happened just this morning, in fact. I assume anyone with one of the early model "low flow" toilets also has the unpleasant experience of having it clog far more often than the old models. I know I am not the only one that has to keep a damn plunger next to their low flow toilet!
I'll be very interested to see if setting the valve to fill slowly has any effect on the problem. I have my doubts simply because the proposed cure, while a hassle to people without cognitive impairments, probably won't be much noticed by someone with dementia. They'll just patiently wait for the tank to refill, or as I mentioned previously keep working the handle until it does flush.
Surely the process will take longer with the reduced flow, but in my albeit limited experience, time does not pass for Alzheimer's patients the way they do for us. My friend Roberto, whose wife had very early onset Alzheimer's, would sit for hours, removing and then putting on her gloves. He had to take her to all our computer group meetings, where she sat mostly in silence, putting her gloves on and taking them off with no apparent concerns about the passage of time. Even with his vigilance, she managed to slip away on one occasion and get seriously lost by getting on a bus, thinking she was going home from work or something like that.
I hope it does work out for you - it's certainly possible. But it sounds like you've got plans B and C well-thought out, just in case. That, again is based on very limited experience but by the time most people get Alzheimer's, the rat-race is over for them and they're usually never in a hurry to get anywhere. Hence my fear that slowing down the refill process won't have much effect. But it could give you enough time to intervene before a small problem because a big, icky one.
The unintended consequence in this case could easily be that by increasing the time between possible flushes, it allows the patient to time to consume even more paper. It's all predicated on the reaction of a person who's losing her ability to think logically. Always a guessing game in the long run. My dad often surprised me at how easily he defeated mechanisms designed to help him stay organized. I think, in the long run, patients will end up wearing GPS enabled communicators with a small eyeglass mounted videocam. That technology is mostly here already, but it's a little pricey. Still when you consider NY pays 1.4M a year per kid to keep them in places where they are sat on and killed, what's a converted cell phone (basically) cost in comparison? This is why we worked so hard to keep dad out of an institution:
I'm betting that audits of places like this can save the taxpayers billions of dollars because if it's happening in NY, it's probably happening everywhere. $1.4M a year to end up choked to death.
-- Bobby G.