Has Anyone Installed a Bidet to assist with hygiene and avoid a UTI?

@LCS

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

It sounds as though the time has come for your mom to be supervised in the bathroom every time. I appreciate this is hard for many caregivers, but it is necessary.

As PWD progress towards incontinence, they start to struggle with the mechanics and etiquette of toileting— wiping, flushing, disposing of used tissue and proper handwashing after. The latter, especially, is critical for the health of all in the house.

My mom (no dementia) has a very nice bidet. She also used to get UTIs which would knock her off the rails. The bidet didn't seem to prevent this for her. In fact, she didn't have UTIs until she got the bidet but that might be coincidence. What helped her was surgery to improve her stress incontinence and the elimination of the need for an incontinence pad. Not sure if that's a situation you have, but I thought I'd put it out there just in case.

Mom's bidet is one of the more high-end Toto models with a night light and heated seat/water. These are very useful features to have. It's pretty great. My concern is that there's a pretty steep learning curve in use as it is pretty high tech and given your description of mom's progression she'd need someone else to operate it for her. Mom's has an integrated control pad, but many have remote controls which is helpful for a caregiver. We bought it about 5 years ago and paid $500 wholesale as my nephew-in-law has a plumbing company. You can find nice ones for less. Costco often has them.

HB