This is the 2nd week in a row that 2 of her shirts are completely soaked in urine. Soaked like you put them under a water fountain. She wears adult diapers. I do not understand how shirts are getting soaked in urine. Has anyone else experienced this or know how this happens? Her bed is not wet nor is the carpet in her room. She says she doesn't know. Help!
try getting her changed every three hrs. and wash the pants or skirts and dresses separately from the rest of her clothes. Also, if possible, rinse them out first then wash them ASAP in WARM TO HOT water. This will not only protect the rest of her clothes, but it will SANITIZE the clothes she was wearing.
Good luck.
when monitoring urine output.
You mom may be pulling and tugging at them and this may be causing them to leak. I don’t think there is a way to keep everything from getting soiled.
1) Be sure you get her some bedtime clothing that is easy to get off and on
2) use bed liners (disposable or washable) to help keep sheets clean
3) invest in some extra sheets so you can quickly remove soiled sheets
4). Get a plastic mattress protector
You may already be doing all this so sorry if this is redundant information.
Good luck
My guess is that she was not wearing the shirts. If she was, they would only be wet on the back or sides if she was a side sleeper, and some parts of the front and top should still be dry, and the bedsheets would be wet.
How far along is her dementia? Dementia patients do strange things that they normally would not if they still had their minds.
You would have to catch your MIL in the act to know for sure how she got her shirts completely soaked.
If I had to guess, I would say she either used the shirts to catch her urine like Countrymouse suggested, or she put her shirts on the floor and peed into them, or she peed on the floor and mopped it up with her shirts, or she put the shirts into the toilet bowl full of urine, or... whatever creative ways her demented mind told her to do.
Does she have help putting on diapers? For over night, she should have at least one thick pad added to the diaper to soak up the extra urine. For my mother, I had to use 2 pads and sometimes her pants still got wet.
Good luck finding out the mystery and solving it.
Good to hear that you are attentive enough to know it is urine.
Aside from looking into the matter more by using some of the advice from others replying to this thread, please ensure that you are using a laundry sanitizer such as Lysol to kill the germs/bacteria that are released in urine and fecal matter. I have come to learn that many caregivers only use detergent when doing laundry, and have not considered that the various accidents of our loved ones need to be sanitized in their clothes.
Best wishes on this journey.
And how could she possibly admit to that, poor lamb?
But it would explain how the bed and the carpet (and presumably her pants and socks) stayed dry.
If you know when she is heading off to bed, or to get changed for bed, gently prompt her to go to the bathroom first. Say something true and reassuring about it, such as "I'd go to the bathroom first, before you get undressed, and then it won't be so chilly."
If MIL lives alone, you need to start thinking about getting help for her in the way of caregivers coming in daily. Or start thinking about placement in Memory Care Assisted Living. Extreme incontinence normally means MILs dementia has progressed past the mild stages now and into the moderate stage, at least. So the problems are likely to start piling up in short order now, making the soaked shirts a small issue in the grand scheme of things :(
If you plan to keep caring for your MIL, then you should familiarize yourself with dementia to the best of your ability. It's a difficult journey, to say the least.
I suggest you read this 33 page booklet (which is a free download) which has THE best information ever about managing dementia and what to expect with an elder who's been diagnosed with it:
Understanding the Dementia Experience, by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210580
Jennifer is a nurse who worked for many years as an educator and counsellor for people with dementia and their families, as well as others in caring roles. She addresses the emotional and grief issues in the contexts in which they arise for families living with dementia.
The full copy of her book is available here:
https://www.amazon.com/Thoughtful-Dementia-Care-Understanding-Experience/dp/B09WN439CC/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2E7WWE9X5UFXR&keywords=jennifer+ghent+fuller+books&qid=1657468364&sprefix=jennifer+ghent%2Caps%2C631&sr=8-2
She also has published a workbook entitled, “It Isn’t Common Sense: Interacting with People Who Have Memory Loss Due to Dementia.”
https://www.amazon.com/Isnt-Common-Sense-Interacting-Dementia/dp/1481995995/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2E7WWE9X5UFXR&keywords=jennifer+ghent+fuller+books&qid=1657468655&sprefix=jennifer+ghent%2Caps%2C631&sr=8-4
Wishing you the best of luck as you travel this road with your MIL. I know how difficult it is; my mother had vascular dementia for about 6 years before she passed in February, so I dealt with a whole lot of issues with her for a long time. Sending you a hug and a prayer for peace. You are very kind to be helping her out!
Adult diapers are just like baby diapers in that they can hold a LOT of urine. Perhaps, MIL is soaking through the depends and then it just works it way into the shirts. Liquids will follow the path of least resistance--and that may be the shirts.
Maybe add a pad or two in the depends and see if that helps the problem.
I just gave up trying to 'connect' the baby's undershirt with the diaper.