Unwilling to use the toilet

sunnysider

Hello...my mother with dementia has recently developed an aversion to using the toilet. While she wears a diaper and incontinence pad, she sometimes refuses to change them for more than 24 hours with her regular pants getting wet. Then, in the last two days, she has had bowel movements in her pants and not said anything. It took a few hours yesterday before I realized something was wrong and coaxed her into the bathroom to check. Still, she did everything unwillingly, which is a new phenomenon. Has anyone had to deal with this issue?

Hoot619

Suunysider,  Your not the only one and I imagine a lot of others are having the same problem. My wife quit using the bathroom almost 2 years ago. I had to do the clean up. If she did use it she never wiped than walked to bed to put depends on.  The times she tried she couldn't remember all the steps on using toilet.  She hated the shower for her cleanup. I had to force her in there and wash her. Sometimes she let me know she had filled her Depends.

It's not their fault parts of their brain isn't working anymore. I wish she was still here so I could do it again. I'm feeling sorry for me now, I know I wouldn't want to prolong this disease for me toward the end stages if I had it. Hoot.

Rescue mom

It seems to happen to a lot of dementia patients, from what I learn here and other support groups. Taking them to the toilet regularly, like every 2-3 hours, helps a lot; otherwise mostly just watching or checking them often. Some have certain movements or signals when they’re about to go. Read/search  through back pages of this forum and hopefully others will also have ideas.