I thought that I had put my wife in the best place available. To supplement her care, I hired an outside caregiver to spend from 8:30am to 2:30pm every day of the week to help her with eating, make sure she has sufficient liquids handy, try to get her to exercise, etc.
My wife has incontinence- both ways; when I visited her on Sunday I didn't notice anything seriously amiss but my wife's daughter with sharper sense did. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, the room and bathroom had a distinct urine odor (I have a terrible sense of smell) the bathroom which I didn't enter also had excrement on the floor. Also, once my wife got up, it was evident that her panties were soaked according to my step-daughter. My SDE was in a rage not that I could blame her. The floor manager for the dementia unit, attempted to get things under control, but it was bad timing as the bulk of the caregivers were helping other residents get ready for lunch. My basic question, is how does a facility minimize the effects of both bowel and urine incontinence in this type of situation. one thought was that a caregiver visits my wife every 2 hours, day and night, and gets her to the toilet, etc. Do you think this might work? Has anyone tried something different that was effective?
watchful if it were me, I would check to see when do they attend to each residents personal needs. like how often do they come to take them to the bathroom/ I would also opt for the depends at this point since shes incontinent both areas. it will help absorb the stuff shes laying in at least til they can get to her.and they should be using a good barrier cream on her bum. if you have a caregiver coming that often I would think they should be changing her at minimum once every visit. no excuses for them laying in waste. and it will be an issue for pressure sores and skin deterioration if not corrected. getting them up to the toilet is good but as good to have them dry and clean in a depend is a must too. good luck. divvi
My wife is in a memory unit. I told them that if she starts to get up, they should take her to the bathroom. When I had her at home, following this rule saved a lot of incontinent BM's. I also suggested that they take her every 2 hours, before meals, and before I pick her up for a special musical presentation, etc. So far (she has been there since Aug.) I have not seen any evidence of messes that were not cleaned up.
when dh was in a nh this summer for rehab, I asked them to take him to the bathroom every 2 hours because he drinks a lot during the day and was not yet incontinent or in depends. After several accidents, I asked the supervising nurse if they could take him more frequently (every 1.5 hours). She said they would try but it might be difficult since they had 30 other residents to care for as well. Well, he was still having accidents. I hired an aide independently for about 5-6 hours a day and he was able to take dh to the bathroom every 1.5 hours or less, so the accidents stopped. The aide you hired should be able to take your wife as needed since she's there 6 hours a day.
BTW, the nh staff/aides stopped taking dh to the bathroom when they found out I'd hired a private aide. Basically they stopped doing several things for dh because they felt the private aide should do them. I disagreed but that's how they responded and apparently no one made sure they attended to dh during the private aide's hours.
One other thing to think about if a NH aide takes your LO every 2 hours and then bring them back to bed and 15 minutes later they soil themselves they will unfortunately not be checked for another hour and 45 minutes....it happens and with cut backs on staff, well they only have 2 hands. Or they are partly through working with your LO and another emergency situations comes up they might not have had time to get back and clean the bathroom thoroughly. It does happen and isn't pleasant to think about it.
The staff is also probably really grateful that you have a private aide looking after your LO. Lessen the work load a little bit.
Amber you are so kind and understanding. Yes, the NH aides are underpaid and understaffed and I'm sure they were grateful to have an extra pair of hands to help with the work. However, they stopped attending to dh which is against the NH policy...I was informed that the private aide was not allowed to perform personal care due to liability reasons in case dh or he got hurt. But since the staff stopped attending to DH while the aide was there, the aide did do personal care and the aides were happy to let him. Didn't reduce the daily cost charged by the NH.
WATCHFUL 7 The real world of NH's is that when there is a private duty aide caring for the patient, the regular staff's perception is that there is one less patient the they have to check up on. The natural assumption is that the private aide is doing their job for them. The NH Staff believes. and it's just human nature, that the private duty aid renders in house staff redundant. Part time private aides never worked out, but my DW quickly moved to critical care and Hospice provided private duty nurses 24x7