Thank You! And looking for ideas...

@merci

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but pleased you found this place.

This sounds like a difficult situation. Your dad probably offered your mom a lot of scaffolding in her day-to-day life that allowed her to function better than she is able to now. What you're seeing is her true baseline without him propping her up. This is super common.

The other piece is that it sounds as though your mom is headed towards incontinence which is inevitable in late stage dementia. The signs this is happening are not hand-washing, poor wiping, used tissue in the trash or on the vanity, skipped flushing. This is your warning to make sure the bed is covered in a waterproof 6-sided protector and that you have supplies (wipes, incontinence panties/diapers and gloves) on hand. It would also be prudent to pack a bag with these supplies (and a plastic bag) and a change of clothing (shoes, too) to have in the car when you take her out just in case.

Often accidents happen rarely at first, but then become more common. Normally urinary incontinence precedes bowel and often bedwetting is the first sign. In this in-between stage, a 2-hour toileting schedule can sometimes avoid full-on incontinence care if she's cooperative and her caregivers stick to the schedule and are tuned into signs she needs a potty visit between scheduled toileting.

Once messes occur, it's time for supervision in the bathroom to be sure she's seated, wipes and washes her hands well after. She may be resistant to this at first, and it might help to have the aides lead her to the bathroom for a time before inserting themselves in the process.

If the mess looks like diarrhea, it could be that she has encopresis which is when old, hard stool isn't passed and softer stool leaks around it without her being able to control it. If this is what you're seeing, a PCP could order imaging to confirm and order a course of something like Miralax to clear her out which may restore normal bowel habits for a time.

HB

I have no insight on the toileting issue, but you mentioned not knowing what stage she was in so I attached a staging tool that may help.

Your welcome. I am also going to attach a really good article. I can’t remember if there was anything on toileting, but I found it shed some light on things I didn’t understand.