Several times my mother has put her hands in her poop during her sleep, now she is doing it when she is awake. She is not senile. She will be 86 in July, 2013. I am at my wits end as how to stop this. I know I can not tie her hands, but after cleaning up this mess on her hands, nails and the bed I am tempted. Please tell me that there is a solution!
While I am blessing, God bless Buck & Buck. My deeply demented mom has been decorating her own room, the shared hallways in her assisted living/nursing home/hospital care -- the whole world within her reach -- with her own feces for months now. The staff and I have been pulling out our hair. Socks on her hands at night has helped, but when she is awake she won't keep them on. Even when I was sitting right next to her at dinner (with other residents at the table), she is so quick and practiced that she reached into her pants to bring her bowel movement out for display at the dinner table this week.
No amount of reasoning, talking, writing (for her to read), signage, begging, etc., etc., has helped. I read a post on another site about in her frustration over losing her wits, it might be important to her to keep "part of her body" rather than to flush it away. Who knows? She's conversational, but she can't explain this.
My mom's fingernails have been caked with feces. No caregiver can be blamed for failing to keep up with it. It's an ongoing project without respite. She won't sit still for thorough cleaning very often. It's a health hazard for her and for everyone around her.
The Buck & Buck one-piece suit is the first useful advice I have found and I have asked A LOT of experts and read A LOT of websites for advice. This works. Buck & Buck has some other super useful ideas for our issues, too.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, CarolLynn.
And, God bless all of you who are caring for the demented.
Anyway, back to your problem. I doubt you can have her wear latex gloves 24/7. Wouldn't be good for her skin. I kind of like the mitten idea - wonder where you could buy those? I can't imagine trying to wrassle an 86-year-old woman into long johns with a zipper up the back. Does she wear pajamas or a nightgown? We keep my mom in a short nightgown for ease of access when she has to potty or to clean her, not unlike hospitals making patients wear hospital gowns.
Other than keeping her nails short for ease of cleaning, and keeping disinfecting wipes handy for when she's playing in her diaper, I don't know what to tell you. I don't think there is any way to keep an adult diaper tight enough that she would not be able to get into it if she really wanted to, which leads me back to WHY she does it. I know one elderly relative of mine used to reach in to dig her feces out when she felt constipated. We couldn't get her to stop doing that so we cut her nails very short so she wouldn't scratch herself and get an infection.
Ahhh, caring for the elderly...
My daughter will get onto her poop when she is constipated( she has special needs). Could your Mom be having issues with that? Keeping her on a high fiber diet might help.
Also , maybe, get her some pajama tops and bottoms-separates -and add some Velcro or , if handy enough, some buttons, to the bottoms of the top and the top of the bottoms ( haha-that is kinda funny ) so they can be secured together and not undone very easily. Some Velcro can be pretty strong but buttons would be better however I would not know how to make button holes. You can un do them for changes and cleaning but maybe Mom won't be able to.
Good luck!!
My mom was just in the hospital for a UTI. She kept pulling out her I.V. They put these puffy white thumbless "mittens" on her hands that looked like boxing gloves. They were secured by these velcro strips that wrap around the wrist in a way that was too complicated for her to figure out how to remove. There was a flap you could pull up to expose the fingers if needed, and even with the flap open the tip of her fingers were too far from the tip of the mitten for her to do much harm. She didn't like them too much but they were only just a mild annoyance to her and they were much better than any other alternative, and while I was with her to monitor her behavior she could have them off.
I don't know if your mom is in diapers but if she is maybe this will help.
When my father with Alzheimer's was in a nursing home for the last 16 months of his life, his "roommate" was a decade older with some type of dementia, bedridden and in the fetal position. He regularly forced his hands into his diaper to masturbate or handle his poop. The neuro-psychiatrist explained to me that although sexuality is one of the last things to go, this manifestation is often indicative of reverting back to a one and a half to two year old stage where children are touching their genitalia because it feels good and show what adults might call an obsession with their poop because they feel they are losing something from their bodies.
Similar but not the same as the "union suit" suggested above, the nursing home put Lester in a jump suit made specially for problems such as this and for people with dementia who undress themselves. They have a zipper up the back so the person can neither undress themselves nor reach into their underwear. In Lesters case he just kept running his hand down the side of the jumpsuit absentmindedly looking for a pocket that wasn't there. It didn't frustrate him, it just didn't let him accomplish his goal.
Later, my aunt had alcohol dementia and when she was beginning to show signs of undressing, I remembered Lester and the jumpsuits and started doing a little research. For ladies, they make zipper up the back jumpsuits that look like two piece outfits. I was almost ready to order some of those for her when she had three strokes and ended up passing away.
So perhaps what I found will help you with your mom. In addition to the two piece looking zipper up the back outfits, they also had ladies back zippering jumpsuits. There may be other places but the one I found that I planned to order from was (buck and buck).
I would love to hear follow up on this if you have time to post. Good luck and best wishes.
Other things that may work are Union Suites - old fashion I know but you can still find them and it makes it harder for the person to access that area (you can also cut and hem them for summer use if needed). Bike shorts also help - They are harder to get on because they are tighter, but that's the point. No matter what you do it will be more work for you, the care giver but you have to decide which battle you are willing to fight. Good luck!
Diapers....
medication - my answer to everything ;-) but really a little anxiety medication may help her sleep better and not wake up and do that....and it might help her in the day not to do it....
tell doctor what is going on...if they don't listen, keep contacting them...get doctor on the phone to talk to you... tell doctor everything... she must be showing other symptoms...
Of course she's senile; no one in their right mind would play with their poop.