Several days this week have been horrendous for Dad (he's had 3 washes on the go in a day) and upsetting for Mum (who won't remember why Dad's so fed up but gets very stressed because he is).
Are lapses from the previous levels of incontinence to be expected please in mid-late stage dementia? Is there any source of expert advice (eg incontinence nurse or GP) you'd recommend who might be able to help get Mum's incontinence problems back under control?
Mum's been bowel incontinent for around a year. She's now got used to wearing incontinence pants.
Mum's not a compliant patient and part of the incontinence problem is the extreme difficulty of getting Mum to go to the loo at regular intervals.
Constipation has been a chronic problem and Mum's on lactulose (dosage is "tweaked" as required to suit her needs - there's no obvious reason to adjust the dosage at the moment). As far as Dad knows, Mum isn't unwell (she has UTIs very often). Mum's now been on memantine for around 8 - 12 weeks.
The only non-family help Dad gets is a morning carer to get Mum up and give her the morning pills and someone to do the ironing for them. My own feeling is that we're getting to the limit of Dad's ability to cope with Mum at home; I think he's not quite ready to accept that yet. Dad's 88, he's got bad arthritis virtually everywhere it's possible to get arthritis.
Are lapses from the previous levels of incontinence to be expected please in mid-late stage dementia? Is there any source of expert advice (eg incontinence nurse or GP) you'd recommend who might be able to help get Mum's incontinence problems back under control?
Mum's been bowel incontinent for around a year. She's now got used to wearing incontinence pants.
Mum's not a compliant patient and part of the incontinence problem is the extreme difficulty of getting Mum to go to the loo at regular intervals.
Constipation has been a chronic problem and Mum's on lactulose (dosage is "tweaked" as required to suit her needs - there's no obvious reason to adjust the dosage at the moment). As far as Dad knows, Mum isn't unwell (she has UTIs very often). Mum's now been on memantine for around 8 - 12 weeks.
The only non-family help Dad gets is a morning carer to get Mum up and give her the morning pills and someone to do the ironing for them. My own feeling is that we're getting to the limit of Dad's ability to cope with Mum at home; I think he's not quite ready to accept that yet. Dad's 88, he's got bad arthritis virtually everywhere it's possible to get arthritis.