My Mom lives with me, she doesnt walk or talk, is incontinent. I puree her foods and thicken her drinks. She really hasnt changed much, it been like in 4-5 years out of the almost 8 years she has been here. One thing I have done it get mom on a schedule and she will poop on the toilet instead of a diaper. Although she cannot understand, I am trained to see the signs and also give her miralax, etc.
My problem is this...I lift mom into her wheelchair, feed her 2 hours, and then we are off to the bathroom. I lift her on the toilet and she straightens out her legs, a lot, slides down, leans over, etc. I am trying so hard to wash her poop up and hold her up at the same time. By the time I am done and I lift her back to her wheelchair I am sweating and exhausted. I do pay someone for week mornings and she is great but weekends are a killer with no help. I am burning out bigtime.
If I let her go in her diaper, it goes into her vagina, etc and is horrible to keep her turned in bed to clean it all up too. Help! What do you at home caregivers do????????????????????????????????????????
I am posting this 3 times for help. THanks
I haven't been through this, so I don't have many suggestions except the floor to ceiling (what looks like a stripper) pole, that your mother could hang onto while you're cleaning up.
It seems the difficulty is mobility, strength and positioning and something that your mother could hang onto while standing might help, the question being whether or not she has that strength.
Another option is to have a pull down bar installed from the ceiling. She would hold onto that with her arms, while standing. Again, the question is the issue of strength.
There might be other options, such as a bar that swings out from the wall; again she would have to be able to hold onto it while standing.
If you did choose any of these methods, the installation would have to be by a professional carpenter who knows how to attach them into the studs; mollies aren't acceptable.
I wish I had some good suggestions for you, but I know there are others here who have gone through this and I'm hoping they come along to offer help.
I'm wondering also if the nurses her have suggestions as they would have seen this situation at hospitals.
Another idea would be to use toilet rails and have a very soft piece of long fabric that you'd loop around your mom's waist and attach her to the rails to keep her somewhat upright?
I don't have that issue with my mom, so I have no idea if either of these would help. Good luck...you're doing a very difficult job by yourself.
It occurred to me that some people here have worked in hospice; they might have some suggestions to offer.
Sorry I couldn't be of any help.
Don't be shy with the details.
I did try a commode chair but there was a bar across the chair on the bottom (like behind where ankles would be), and I couldnt get her far enough back into the commode chair.
Nurses and hospice workers, can you help out???
I'm wondering about a gripper strip on the floor so her feet don't slide?
Just googled "gripper strips"; I see there are larger strips to put on floors to prevent skidding and/or sliding. Maybe something like that would help provide traction, to at least address the slipping aspect?
What doesnt eveyone else do with bm incontinence? Thank you all again, so appreciative!
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Sometimes we have to just surrender to the hard reality that the job of caregiving has gotten beyond our means to provide all necesary care at the level our loved one deserves.
Also, I've seen a portable bidet on amazon(pretty cheap) that you fill with water(so you could do warm water) and looks like you just squeeze it out. Not sure how good it works, I wanted to try one for my mom but she's a bigger girl & I couldn't fit it behind her on that potty chair.
Also, have you asked the hired help how they handle it? And if you're saving the miralax for weekends, I wouldn't. Let hired help do it. I have made myself realize this with mom & bathing bc it's hard for me. It's their job, just like you have one during week, and you're paying for that service to make your life better/easier. They aren't being paid to house sit and just watch tv & play games on their phone(can you tell we had one girl that only wanted to do that lol) I hope I've helped in some way & if you do find a technique that works, please post it bc this is getting to be very hard thing for us too. You're also right about the lift, I've often wondered how that would work any differently than you described!!