Bathing Links

On the previous post Pam commented:

My mom and I are at the water-temperature-controlling stage. You’ve done a great job describing what’s to come, and a loving, respectful and pragmatic way to approach those stages to follow.

And Deanna also observed,

I have just finished reading your March 24th entry on bathing. I intend to read all of your back entries as time allows. My husband is now living at a Veterans Home in Georgetown, Ohio. During the years I was caring for him, I experienced so many of the challenges you have described with your grandfather. I am 13 years younger than my husband but not physically strong enough to do the things you are doing, hence the reason he could no longer be at home.

These comments describe the situation well. In my last post I clearly described how I handled Grandpa’s problems with bathing. I hope what I said will help other people understand the process and perhaps even help them in caring for someone with bathing trouble. But it is also true that my method of dealing with some problems is not an option for most people. I can easily pick up my Grandfather and put him in the shower. Most people can’t, and for that reason my solution isn’t very helpful. If you can’t pick someone up and put them in the shower, what can you do when they get that incapable of helping themselves?

The answer to that depends a lot on your particular circumstances so there is no one nice neat little answer to this big problem (sorry). But when I get some more free time I would like to share some more from my experience with this bathing issue–some solutions that hopefully will be helpful even for people no able to pick up and carry the person in their care. For right now I am going to provide two links to articles about dealing with Alzheimer’s and bathing. They are good reading for anyone who is dealing with this difficult matter.

The first article is titled Tips . . . On Bathing and is just that. The second article is called Reflections on Reflections: Bathing and Alzheimer’s Disease. Some of what these articles say repeats observations I have already made, but if you are a caregiver they will give you an additional perspective you may find very helpful.

Bathing can be one of the most difficult parts of caregiving and if you are in the situation where you must work through it, you’ll need all of your wits about you and all of the good advice you can get.