I help care for my grandmother...she is very difficult to handle..she never tells what she needs..even when I was younger...always difficult to express her needs..no matter how patient u r with her. She goes in the room & expects us to clean. It's all the more difficult now that she needs care...to constantly guess her needs and to make things easier for her..my biggest issue is she refuses to go to the bathroom tho she can walk to it...so we tried making her wear a diaper which she removes...and she relives herself in her room..and expects us to clean it..we tried bedpans..an diaper like I said...this upsets me sometimes and I'm rude to her :( and I hate being tht way...I coming to not like the person I who I'm am around her...she is my grandmother and I love her...I really need help.. But this is really getting to me...I want to do what is right for her and for me !! HELP !!!
My parents are in their 90's, and my Dad wouldn't wear Depends... finally my Mom got tired of cleaning up his messes so now she is making him clean up his own mishaps... guess what?.... Dad now is wearing Depends.
But if your Grandmother has memory issues and cannot understand why one needs to use a toilet and hates wearing a Depends, it is time for a higher level of care in a nursing home.
You don't say in your profile, but is sounds as though your grandmother is suffering from dementia. You can't reason with dementia and you really can't train them either. If you are rude to her, and it might escalate from there, then perhaps it is time for you to make the decision not to be her caregiver anymore. Either let someone else be responsible, or place her in a home where they have equipment and trained personnel to deal with situations as you have described. This could go on for many, many years, and will not improve. People do not get well from dementia.
Do as much reading as you can find and ask as many questions as you come up with. We are all learning as we go along this pathway with our loved ones.
Here at home, I would never use that term, and Mom and I call them "pads" as she uses the Tena pads.
When you say that she relives herself in her room, do you mean in a commode, or do you mean she just goes on the bed or in the corner or something like that? If it’s in a commode, I don’t know if you’re going to do any better than that.
But if you mean somewhere undesirable, like the bed or floor, I have several of those mattress pads that wick moisture away but protect the mattress. If Mom has an accident, I change it along with the sheets. Of course, that means laundry and doesn't solve the problem of the wet behind. Getting someone with a wet behind to change their clothes and wash their behind isn’t that easy, either, so it doesn’t solve the entire problem.
I purchased incontinence pads that you can put on furniture, but the washable ones, not the disposables that they sell at the drug stores. When Mom is especially having problems, I put those on top of the mattress pad because they’re easier to take off and wash than the entire mattress pad.
If it’s the floor, I’m trying to think how you could put these pads around so that she’s using them instead of right on the floor, but not sure if there’s a way to secure them.
If it's hot by you, you can still jump in the lake, but it's still too cold, here. I had a glass of wine to chill-out, though. :-)
This has helped to take the pressure of and helped me think...I realized I needed to divert her attention to other things after she wears one...and she has always liked playing board games and simple puzzles..so I got her a few...and she now is busy playing them !!
@txcamper- I agree and understand your concern abt the usage of the term diaper,I probably should not hv used it in a public forum...But I also should hv mentioned earlier that I am from India, here it just is a technical term.
And most definitely not meant to be demeaning to my Grandmother or anyone else.
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