Four Ideas for Making Bathroom Issues Easier

There’s a lot happening when it comes to the bathroom. Your senior may have some specific needs that are changing quickly. Here are just a few ideas for helping her to keep up with what she’s experiencing.

Hydration Is Non-negotiable

Often when someone starts having issues with incontinence or other problems related to toileting, the knee-jerk reaction is to reduce hydration levels. But that’s going to cause many more problems than it ever resolves. Your elderly family member absolutely needs to be drinking plenty of water each day to keep herself as healthy as possible. She may want to look at the timing of her beverages throughout the day to make sure that she’s not drinking a lot of water late in the day.

Prioritize Bathroom Safety

Safety in the bathroom is absolutely key to helping your elderly family member as much as possible. Look at whether handrails would be a good addition. Focus on whether lighting, particularly a night light, might be a good idea, too. Anything that allows your senior to feel more secure while she’s in the bathroom is really important.

Make the Bathroom as Easy to Find as Possible

Finding the bathroom might be more of a challenge if your senior is having trouble with cognitive illnesses, like dementia. In that case, make sure that you’re making the bathroom really obvious so that she doesn’t miss it. Posting signs can help, as can using signs in other areas of the house, pointing toward the bathroom. You might also want to consider moving or rearranging furniture that might get mistaken for a toilet in an emergency moment.

Find a Nighttime Solution

At night, all bets might be off in terms of what works during the day for your elderly family member. Some of the nighttime solutions that might work for her could involve a bedside toilet or nighttime incontinence underwear. Waterproof mattress pads and sheets might also be a good option. These tools can help your elderly family member to feel more comfortable sleeping at night and can help with cleanup if an accident should happen.

It’s embarrassing to rely on someone else for something this personal, so don’t be surprised if your aging family member is resistant to help at first. Something that can help is to bring in elderly care providers. They know just what to do and how to help your senior without adding to the embarrassment.