Toilet issues

[Lola046]

Hi my OH is 66 and I think in the middle stages of vascular dementia. Recently he appears to be showing almost OCD tendencies namely with his shoes, putting them on taking them off over and over again. He also constantly moves items around the house randomly. All of this I assume is normal behaviour?

However recently he has been pooing in the bath, which is bad enough, but when I told him to use toilet roll and flush it down the toilet, I found that he threw it out of the window! Today, he pooed in the toilet, then took it out of the toilet. When I am trying to help him deal with it he just gets abusive. Is this another stage to be deal with? If so how do others cope with this?

 

[Louise7]

Hi @Lola046 and welcome to the forum. The repetitive behaviour and toilet problems you've described are not uncommon but aren't easy to deal with. It sounds as if your OH has reached the stage where he will need to be accompanied to the toilet, and as he is being abusive when you try to help him it might help to get some professional carers in to assist with this. Some people do respond better to someone other than a partner/relative helping them with personal care and toileting so it might be worth a try. If you haven't already done so, it's perhaps a good idea to think about requesting a care needs assessment from the local authority adult social care team to see what help and support is available for you both, and the factsheets below might be helpful too. You are not alone in having these issues. There is a lot of shared experience here, people understand and are happy to offer help and support if they can, so hopefully others will be along with some more suggestions.

Repetitive behaviour and dementia

People with dementia often carry out the same activity, make the same gesture, say the same thing, make the same noise or ask the same question over and over.

www.alzheimers.org.uk

The care needs assessment: support for people with dementia

This page looks at how a person with dementia can get a care assessment, who does an assessment, how they are carried out, who makes the decision, and tips for making the most of the care needs assessment. It also explains the eligibility criteria.

www.alzheimers.org.uk

 

[sdmhred]

Oh bless you @Lola046

This must be so frustrating for you. I worked with someone who used to throw toilet paper out of the window …he lived in a top floor flat and it landed in the tree below 😬😬

I used to accompany mum in the toilet and do the necessaries for her. She mainly allowed me but I did find my tone and approach helped a lot. people with dementia are always right in their own mind so telling them they are wrong or getting cross is going to backfire. We have to bite our tongue and encourage the right behaviour without telling them off. It’s difficult.

Does he need the poo at roughly the same time each day? If so I would try to get him on the loo at that time….can you get in the bathroom under a guise of cleaning or something?

For many poo issues do tend to be the time they start to think about needing respite or care home ….

Bless you…we’re always here.

 

[333pjb]

Hi,

Like many functions that get short-circuited in the brain with this terrible disease, is it possible that to him his behaviour in the bath could be perfectly logical?
Is there an association from the past? E.g did his routine include one ‘function’ and then the other? Have the two somehow become conflated?

If he will cooperate, could it help if a procedure picture / diagram was in the bathroom where he could be ‘reminded by it’ but without feeling any humiliation. Reminders could be supplemented by gentle barrier prompts such as hazard tape across the bath (easy to remove when needed).

In the care home today, I had a perfectly normal conversation with a resident about her top (which was striped) – up to the point when she said that she couldn’t decide if it was actually a cat or a dog. I suggested as it was striped, it was probably a zebra! This made her laugh, a happy moment for her in all the chaos.
Good luck.