Cold hand issue...please help!!!

[Sam Stern]

Whenever I'm trying to dress my mum, or hold her hand, touch her she gets really agitated and screams about how my hands are freezing cold. She is even worse with my dad, telling him he needs to cut his hands off, he's a freak, what is wrong with him, he's not normal etc. She gets really angry and aggressive with my father over his "cold hands," but not so much with me. It's clearly an important and triggering issue for her and obviously something I want/need to resolve. Has anybody else had this problem? We've tried wearing fleece gloves, but it's impossible to dress somebody with gloves on. We've tried warming our hands on the radiator/a mug of hot tea before touching her, but she still feels our hands are "freezing cold." She permanently feels cold anyway and has started trying to refuse to go to the toilet because the toilet seat is "freezing, bitter, awful, just terrible, cold" — she often just pees in the adult pads that she wears instead, which, obviously isn't the best or healthiest solution. Any ideas, anyone PLEASE?!!! it's clearly distressing for her, and obviously, it's also distressing for my father and me.

 

[jugglingmum]

Have you tried thin silk or cotton gloves?

You can buy liner gloves in silk or cotton quite easily (Google glove liners) and these will be more practical than fleece gloves.

You can also get heated toilet seat covers although this may just be part of the progression to incontinence.

 

[SeaSwallow]

Hello @Sam Stern and welcome to the forum. I think that the issue here is not that you or your dad's hands are cold or that the toilet seat is cold but that your mum perceives them as being cold. This can happen when someone has dementia as their brain seems to misinterpret that they are feeling. I am really not sure that there is a way to solve this issue but hopefully someone with experience of this will come along with some advice.
In the meantime you could perhaps speak to your mum's GP to see if some anti anxiety medication might help her.