How to Deal With Incontinence In Alzheimer’s Patients

Posted by kunal joshi on September 26th, 2019

Alzheimer’s disease is generally associated with the devastating effects of memory loss. However, family members and caregivers have to deal with many more complications of this condition, which can physically quite troublesome. Incontinence is a symptom that raises its ugly head in the later stages of dementia. Approximately 60-70% of Alzheimer’s patients develop incontinence. It goes without saying, even going to a bathroom is an arduous task for them due to many reasons: they often lose the ability to recognize when they need to urinate or might forget where the bathroom is; it also may so happen that they are not able to take off their clothes on time. More often than not, in the final stage of Alzheimer’s, a person experiences loss of control over their movements, which also includes their bowel and bladder muscles. Additionally, some medicines prescribed for Alzheimer’s have incontinence as a side-effect. Thankfully, you can now choose from a wide variety of adult diapers for Alzheimer’s patients that will be of huge help for the patient and the caregiver alike. The following are some of the approaches that caregivers can adopt for Alzheimer’s patients suffering from incontinence:

• It is not a good idea to make the patient feel like a child or a sense of embarrassment. No matter how challenging it is to such a person’s toileting issues, you need to understand that it is something they have little or no control over.
• It is often recommended to eliminate caffeine from the day-to-day intake of such patients, since it triggers incontinence, but make sure this does not compromise with their daytime intake of fluids, since that can bring about extreme dehydration, and in turn, cause urinary tract infections. In a vicious cycle, this will end up worsening incontinence and provoke agitation in the patient.
• The doctor can clearly specify the toileting instructions and tips. You can also seek his/her suggestion for a bathroom schedule to avoid accidents as much as possible.
• The path to the bathroom should be free of hazards. You can make the bathroom safer by having a raised toilet seat if bending is hard, grab bars on the adjacent walls or a toilet rail is they need support.
• It will be immensely helpful to have a commode toilet next to their bed. If they need to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night, they should be able to reach it fast enough to avoid accidents.
• The clothing of Alzheimer’s patients should be easy to put on and take off. This will benefit them as well as you.

By using the right incontinence products, you can minimize the amount of clean-up required in case of accidents. Go for the best diapers for dementia patients and you can be worry-free about leakages and staining.