My sister and I are caring for our mother who will soon be 103 years old in her home. We are avoiding a nursing home -a promise we made years ago to her - as long as she "knows where she is".
She is very sweet and her mind is good, although we are seeing some short term forgetfulness and anxiety recently. She's broken and rehabbed from two broken hips and takes little medicine. (Eyedrops for glaucoma 7 times a day.)
Our biggest problem right now is trying to get enough sleep. Mother wakes up some nights 5 or 6 times to visit the bathroom. (She is not incontinent!)
My sister and I are ages 68 and 78 and have homes and families of our own some distances away, but we take shifts to stay with Mother. After 3 nights without sound sleep, we feel like we are falling apart.
Mother checks negative for UTIs and we've tried everything - propping her up, Geritol, darkening her room, etc - but nothing seems to help. The strange thing is that during the day, she goes 6 hours or more and doesn't have to go to the bathroom. Just let her get into bed and us into a sound sleep, and the wake ups begin and can continue every hour or two, with them sometimes occurring 20-30 min. apart.
Her doctors, including a gerontologist, are stumped. We know she has a cystocele and had a pessary for awhile, but that caused more problems. Several of the doctors tell us to have her urinate in her protective pad when she wakes up, but she is not comfortable with doing that. Besides, any urine touching her very fragile skin for even short periods of time seems to set off fungal infections.
We can't afford more than a little respite care through the local office of aging, especially at night.
Any suggestions or explanations would be appreciated because we cannot go on much longer. After all, sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture on some places!
My 92 year old mother was also up a dozen times during the night to urinate. Like your Mom - there was nothing really wrong....except I think that maybe it was just the position of her bladder when she laid down. My poor father, who slept beside her for almost 65 years, couldn't get a decent night's sleep for beans! He put a potty chair next to the bed and a fairly good night light nearby so she could simply slip out of bed and use it as she needed without having to fully disturb him. He emptied the potty every morning after breakfast - lol - part of their routine. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it helped.
We sprung her out of both places after a month and both times she came home with "community-acquired" infections (her m.d.'s term) that we managed to conquer.
We stayed with her as advocates after her first night in the NH, when she ended up lying in her feces and urine for over an hour. We saw the staff wiping her from back to front. She couldn't tolerate the food. (Ever tried pureed dinner rolls...?) They gave her meds and did other things that we were told were their system, but from experience caring for her, we knew the results - and we were right!
We find at her age that her ability to adapt to such places is nearly impossible, given that her mind is still relatively good. She is presently in the quiet and peaceful home her husband built, surrounded by caring people who love her, eating food she can enjoy and sleeping in her own bed. She exercises every day with us, gets around in her walker and still helps with some chores. She is an inspiration to all who meet her.
She really doesn't require much care during the day, and since she still remembers stories of her long life, I am writing them down and beginning a family history while I have her with me.
It is just this nighttime issue that is troubling. We hope we can solve it and this hold out as long as we're needed.
Can you not load mom's area of concern up with a moisture barrier ointment and put her in heavy duty depends overnight?