Hygiene usually slips quietly. Nobody notices a skipped shower on a Tuesday, but by the end of a month the pattern is obvious to everyone except the man who is living it. The early signs are small: a shower that used to happen every day now happens every other day, hair that goes unwashed, the same shirt worn several days in a row, or a razor left in the cabinet.
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Separate a choice from a lost step
Some skipped showers are a choice. Dad may dislike a new shower chair, dislike the water temperature, or simply be tired of the routine. Others are a lost step. He may be avoiding a tub that feels unsteady, a bathroom that is cold, or a light that is too dim to see the floor. Ask him directly what makes the shower harder than it used to be, and listen for the specific thing he names.
Check the room before the man
Look at the things that make the bathroom hard to use. Check whether the hot water comes on quickly, whether the floor is slick where he steps out, whether the grab points are where his hands would naturally go, and whether the light switch is reachable from the doorway. A fix to any of those is cheaper and kinder than an argument about hygiene.
Keep a simple log
Put a calendar on the refrigerator and mark each time he showers or changes clothes for seven days. You are not trying to catch him out. You are trying to see the rhythm. A week of marks tells you more than a month of impressions, and it gives you something concrete to bring to his doctor if the pattern holds. Ask the doctor whether anything medical could be behind a change in routine, since that question belongs with a clinician.
What to do when the log shows a real drop
If the marks show a clear drop and the room checks come back fine, the next step is a direct conversation about help with bathing, framed around safety in the bathroom rather than cleanliness. Offer a single change first, such as a different chair or a second towel bar within reach, and watch the log for another week before adding anything else.
Next move this week: Mark the calendar every time he showers or changes clothes for seven days, then walk into the bathroom and check the water, the floor, the grab points, and the light. Write down the one thing that is wrong, and fix only that.