Elderly Incontinence Care
Elderly incontinence care is a fast growing need when you have aging loved ones at home. Urinary incontinence, as the term suggests, is the incapability of the body, to keep urine in the bladder. It means the muscle (sphincter) that holds your bladder’s outlet closed but is not strong enough to hold back the urine.
Urinary incontinence may be embarrassing and impacts millions of individuals. There are several reasons for incontinence like infection, swelling, or inflammation of the detrusor muscle, or the brain’s inability to recognize the urge to go.
However, bear in mind that incontinence is not a normal part of aging. In most cases it is caused by common and treatable medical conditions. Urinary incontinence does not affect women only, both men and women can suffer from incontinence.
Some of the following conditions may also trigger incontinence:
Urinary tract infection.
Bowel problems, such as constipation.
Prostatitis, a painful infection of the prostate gland.
Certain neurological conditions that affect nerve signals from the brain, such as Parkinson’s disease or stroke.
Kidney or bladder stones.
There are 5 types of urinary incontinence:
Stress incontinence: This is caused by the weakening of pelvic flooring muscles. “Accidents” might occur when you cough, sneeze, laugh, workout or any other motions that include intra-abdominal pressure or pressure to the bladder, triggering percentages of urine to get away.
Urge incontinence or Hypertonic: A sudden or prompt incontinence might be triggered by things like hearing the noise of gushing water, touching something watery, or consuming a little quantity of water.
Functional incontinence: This is more under the control of a person and generally occurs when the person does not acknowledge the urge to go to the toilet in time or cannot get to the toilet in time.
Overflow incontinence or Hypotonic: This happens when the individual’s bladder is constantly full that it causes leakages. Weak bladder muscles or an obstructed urethra might lead to insufficient emptying of the bladder, triggering this type of incontinence.
Transient incontinence: This is temporary urinary incontinence is usually caused by medications and certain types of medical conditions.
Elderly Incontinence Care Suggestions
Watch out for certain foods and drinks. Did you know many foods and drinks can trigger incontinence? In fact, too little fluid is as bad as too much of fluids. Coffee, tea, sugary drinks, fruits like oranges, alcohol can all be triggers. Make sure your loved one gets proper fluid intake and consumes troublesome food moderately.
- Bladder training. This is done by taking journeys to the restroom at specific times prior to avoid involuntarily leakages. This also assists in conditioning the body to set a schedule for emptying the bladder especially those with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
- Of course, it goes without saying, waterproof the mattress, sofa, couch and other furniture. Keep plenty of linen handy so that you can launder as often as needed.
- Treat your loved one with dignity to avoid feelings of embarrassment and failure. Use humour if necessary to diffuse the situation. Make sure they understand you know it’s not their fault.
- Keep essentials handy, changes of clothing, wipes, toilet rolls and sanitizers.
- Make sure your loved one is dressed comfortably and can quickly get out of the clothes when they need. Select clothing that is easy to launder and keep clean.
Consider getting some good deodorizers to get rid of lingering smells.
Some medical and non-medical interventions that may help are listed below:
- Kegel workouts might assist reinforce the muscles accountable for managing urination. Enhancing or keeping pelvic flooring muscle performance might assist minimize tension incontinence.
- Vaginal cone treatment is done to enhance the proper muscles of the pelvic flooring.
- Bladder training. This is done by taking journeys to the restroom at specific times prior to avoid involuntarily leakages. This also assists condition the body to set a schedule for emptying the bladder.
- Medications may assist in tightening up the bladder muscles thus avoiding leakage.
- Surgery maybe recommended in cases where other treatments have been attempted but have failed to work.
Our caregivers are trained to deal with incontinence, personal hygiene and toileting in the right manner. They handle the situation professionally and tactfully without causing embarrassment. They can help if your loved ones need assistance with managing diapers. Accidents are swiftly dealt with and cleaned up.
Urinary incontinence is no laughing matter and should not be treated as such. Help your loved ones preserve their dignity with tact and care and address the underlying condition to help them deal with incontinence effectively.
