The two things you really have to watch out for with caring for the elderly are constipation and bladder infections. Either of these can produce some really wierd behaviours and I am glad my local hospital alerted me to the fact that they can have a profound effect on the brain and behaviour in elderly people.
Constipation is something I try to deal with through Kath's food - we had an episode of constipation once and we had to go to the hospital to get a suppository put in. I don't want to revisit that if I can help it. So I limit my use of white flour severely. I bake bread of half white (sometimes less) and half wholemeal flour. Sometimes I put ground sunflower seeds in it, as these are very good for keeping things moving, as well as being healthful - up to a quarter of the ingredients by bulk - removing half the white flour. I would do that all the time, except that I raise the bread using baking soda because she (and I) have problems with yeast, and for some reason baking soda reacts with sunflower seeds to make a green color which looks odd. If you use yeast, then substtuting with the sunflower seeds is a really good idea.
I also make muffins using sunflower seeds, coconut (another handy standby) and a little potato flour. But one thing I know for sure is that white flour is constipating. So is white sugar, which I just do not keep in the house. Fortunately, my mom has never taken sugar, and has always preferred savory to sweet foods.
If I ever feel we might have a constipation problem starting, I use "Smooth Move" Tea by Traditional Medicinals of CA from the health store. One cup is all it takes - and it's a very pleasant drink.
I keep a special watch out for bladder infection because I know Kath is prone to it, in spite of my efforts. From time to time I put her on cranberry tablets for it. She had several bouts before I discovered it was brought on by her not wiping her bottom properly - she had forgotten how to. So I took over that little job, probably four years back.
The worst recent episode was about 18 months ago and I don't know what brought it on -
We had a couple of days when she became increasingly talkative - if that's possible. She was also quite definitely "stroppy" and by the end of the second day I had made up my mind to get her down to the hospital the following morning for a urine check. Tired, I climbed into bed, right opposite hers and facing her under the window. She wouldn't lie down but sat upright against her pillows and then began biting her sheets and blankets and stuffing them into her mouth.
That was another dark night. It took me a while to get her off to sleep, and images of that night still haunt me. It WAS a bladder infection, as it turned out, and it should be noted that although bladder infections are often painful, my mom never seemed to have any pain with hers. So it's always worth checking, even if the patient ISN'T complaining of bladder or urine pain.
One wonders how many old ladies suffering from bladder infections were classified as "mad" in the old days.
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease, bladder infections, constipation, madness
2 comments:
I'm "one" who DEFINITELY wonders this. My mother not only forgot how to wipe herself, her eliminatory muscles deteriorated to the point where, when she defecated, her muscles spread the stuff up and down her uro-genital-eliminatory area. Even my meticulous cleaning couldn't eradicate her exposure to e coli, which was the constant cause of her very frequent urinary tract infections.
Nothing natural helped, unfortunately, because of the constant urinary tract exposure to her own feces. Her doctor finally put her on maintenance nitrofurantoin (Macrodantin) one of the very few meds I allowed for her, and was grateful existed. From that point on she never had another.
I can only imagine what this must have been like. I mentioned once before how grateful I was that Kath's elimination functions were pretty normal right up to the end. Once I found out what the problem was it was relatively easy to deal with, even if going to the bathroom for 2 people DOES become a bit of a drudge, LOL. At least it wasn't messy. I was lucky in a lot of ways, and I'm thankful for that.
Patricia
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