Not Incontinence but bathroom messes and clothes soiling

Posted by spolson53 @spolson53, Nov 22, 2024

My wife has been rogressing along the dementia path for several years now and is clearly at Stage 5. She is NOT incontinent, but every couple of weeks she will get totally confused in the main bathroom (tile floor fortunately) and I will find her standing surrounded with poop. She wears wool clogs and I have to run them in the machine to clean after this, using OxiClean along with detergent. One time that didn't total work on odor, so I used my ozone generator in a cardboard box to treat them. Fortunately that worked. The cleanup in the bathroom is major. But even worse is that she wears nothing but dresses and has given up on underwear. Not that it would make any difference. Her current dress has dried poop on it, on the inside surfaces. Fortunately, after it is dried, it doesn't seem to smell like dog poop would. But one can make out dicoloration on the outside of the dress that hints at an issue. She absolutely refuses to change her dress or be cleaned in any manner. To the point of becoming combative if you try and force the issue. On normal days, she does wipe herself but puts the tissue in a drawer, not the toilet. That is rritating but not the wrost problem. Who knows the condition of her body when she has the big blowout. She is on Lexapro daily, and the doctor has given me Ativan to give before trying to change clothes/bathe. The last blowout was after I gave that to her, so I am nervous about trying it again. We have a caregiver come in once a week, but that company has said they can assist, but can't make her do anything. It is mostly just to visit with her (they get along great). I am at a total loss as to what to do....

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@tsc

I immediately had an attack and rushed home in dirty underwear!

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Oh, I see. I had been serving him peanut butter lately….hmmm….but it’s normally been okay. He had a peanut butter sandwich yesterday, but no diarrhea. I’ll keep that in mind though.

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@celia16

Oh, I see. I had been serving him peanut butter lately….hmmm….but it’s normally been okay. He had a peanut butter sandwich yesterday, but no diarrhea. I’ll keep that in mind though.

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Everyone's different. If peanut butter doesn't provoke a reaction in your dad, you should consider still offering him that.

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What you describe is awful. I'm so sorry for what you're going through and it scares me to death to think this may be in my future with my husband. There must come a point when the caregiver must insist on something necessary, like putting on clean clothes. How on earth are we supposed to handle that? Advice? Strategies?

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@pamela78

What you describe is awful. I'm so sorry for what you're going through and it scares me to death to think this may be in my future with my husband. There must come a point when the caregiver must insist on something necessary, like putting on clean clothes. How on earth are we supposed to handle that? Advice? Strategies?

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With some people, symptoms make it almost impossible to provide care in the home. Insisting, begging, etc., mean little to the person with dementia because they are not capable of understanding or processing information.

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