Disposable underwear and pads disappearing.
My mom who is in AL is almost completely incontinent and I am having a hard time keeping up with supplying her. She must change many times a day (10-12 pads) and maybe 4-5 pairs of underwear. That's about all she does now is go to the bathroom...and if she is the least bit wet, she changes...sometimes I've notice that she isn't even wet and she changes. She does have some memory loss. I'm also concerned that maybe someone else is taking some of her supplies..at one point we had to move them out of her bathroom to a container close to her chair where she sits. We also spoke to the Director about our concern. After that, they weren't disappearing so fast. But again they are disappearing fast and I can't determine if she's using that many or what. Her Incontinent underwear and pads are a huge expense for her...up to $250 +/month. Does anyone have any suggestions about what we can do...
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My mom spent so much time peeing! It’s awful to be incontinent. There is medication for this situation. Mom tried it. First of all, she was on it for months before I even saw a very slight improvement.
You could try placing her on meds to see if it would help her condition.
Best wishes to you and your mom.
Some real good sluething is needed. I would inform the AL Manager of the problem again.
State you will be checking Mom's room & rubbish bin very regularly. See see if Mom is hiding them or over-changing.
Request the Manager inlist the help of the cleaning staff assigned to Mom's area. Have them take note & report to their supervisor. Not as a blame-game but to help fact-find. (Hidden benefit is this could flush out a thief on the cleaning team).
If not copious amounts of pads & pants found IN the room then you will have to assume they are being stolen OUT of the room & therefore have no choice but to make a more formal complaint.
Visit at unusual times for a week. Take special note of staff entering Mom's room. Listen out for "Oh Mrs .. has lots of spares, just grab one from her room".
She had Parkinson’s disease and later on developed dementia. She had a couple of UTI’s, not too many though. It was miserable for my mom to constantly have to pee.
She wasn’t on any diuretics, even though she should have been due to her edema.
As she aged, she truly couldn’t control her bladder. I knew where every bathroom was wherever we went!
She went to the bathroom so much at home. I kept tons of toilet paper in her bathroom. She went from the time she woke up to bedtime and she certainly didn’t sleep well because she always had to go in the middle of the night.
I know that it was a relief for her when hospice placed a catheter in her.
I remember having to pee constantly when I was pregnant. I have to pee a lot still. I wake up during the night to go to the bathroom too.
As my mother's dementia advanced, so did her OCD behavior with the toilet in general. She spent a LOT of her day on the porcelain throne and close to $200 a month on Depends pull ups alone, not including wipes, chucks, rubber gloves etc. Incontinence supplies are expensive especially when compulsive behavior is involved. And there's no changing such behavior or using logic or reasoning with it, either. The words won't register long term before the compulsion returns to go back to the toilet. I always said, if it wasn't for toilet issues, Mom wouldn't really HAVE any issues. Sigh.
Good luck.
by the way, although it's a dramatic solution, sometimes it's good to have a catheter. the person suddenly is free during the day (and night), instead of rushing to the bathroom all the time.
When my mother was on hospice, her pull-ups were supplied, free. (She has been discharged, and will probably live forever.)
I did not have this problem with Moms AL but others have mentioned it. I kept Moms in her closet. The bathroom had a little cabinet with a shelf. I would put her Depends on the shelf and replenish when they were getting low. One day I get a call from head aide Mom needed Depends. I said, no, just brought in 2 pks they are in the closet. The aide tending Mom did not even look for them.
I would say the aides are taking them for other residents. The AL should have some on hand in case a resident runs out. But its probably easier to run into Moms room and grab one than go to the supply closet. This is stealing and thats how you should say it. Each resident or their family is responsible for keeping the resident supplied if Depends are needed. By going to another residents room to grab one, you are stealing from that resident. If the aide does this, she should also replace it with one of the ALs. Your Moms room is her home. Anything taken out of it without her Oking it is stealing. That goes for a roll of toilet paper or a box of tissues even a bottle of water out of her frig. She bought it, its stealing.