I do my mother in law's laundry. Any tips on leakage?

I remember when my babies were babies and the undershirts they had then had tabs that you'd pin to the diaper when you put it on. The urine would wick its way up the shirt--weirdly, I guess cause they were lying down? And many times I took a semi-wet diaper off and the undershirt was sopping wet.

Adult diapers are just like baby diapers in that they can hold a LOT of urine. Perhaps, MIL is soaking through the depends and then it just works it way into the shirts. Liquids will follow the path of least resistance--and that may be the shirts.

Maybe add a pad or two in the depends and see if that helps the problem.

I just gave up trying to 'connect' the baby's undershirt with the diaper.

As others have said, since mil has dementia, it seems this may be causing her increasing difficulty with incontinence. In my case mom 86 it just progressively worsens. I had made an assumption early on that pullups were the simple perfect answer. I naively didn't consider the dementia factor. Namely mom didn't wear them consistently if at all. At first she would decide not to wear them because she didn't think she needed to. Or she thought had them on but didn't. For a while she thought she was supposed to put it in once she felt the urge to pee. She never won that race. Alternatively she would put them under her to sit on. Or stuff them in her pants like pads. Or use them as rags to wipe herself. I often found brand new still folded pullups in trash 2 or 3 at a time. Her brain failed her at every turn. The result was she would pee on herself and everything else between her and the toilet, if she made it that far. She also began stacking clean laundry on her recliner and other furniture. Then she'd pee on that then throw the clothes in basket or hide them in bottom of trash. Now that mom lives here with me I have to toilet her every 2-3 hours and change her pullup for her. She is at the point now where she doesn't know if she's wearing one or not. She'll ask me. If I'm not on top of this she'll revert to her old ways in a heartbeat. I'm just saying your mil may be having difficulty handling this on her own. She may be leaving the pullup on too long or any combination of events. She'll likely need more hands on help as it gets worse. Something to prepare yourself and your household for. My one suggestion is to get some quilted washable waterproof pads for her bed and any other furniture she sits on.

Your MIL has dementia, meaning, all bets are off as to how ANYTHING happens. She can't answer your questions in a rational manner because she has no idea what's going on or how/why her shirts are completely soaked in urine!

If MIL lives alone, you need to start thinking about getting help for her in the way of caregivers coming in daily. Or start thinking about placement in Memory Care Assisted Living. Extreme incontinence normally means MILs dementia has progressed past the mild stages now and into the moderate stage, at least. So the problems are likely to start piling up in short order now, making the soaked shirts a small issue in the grand scheme of things :(

If you plan to keep caring for your MIL, then you should familiarize yourself with dementia to the best of your ability. It's a difficult journey, to say the least.

I suggest you read this 33 page booklet (which is a free download) which has THE best information ever about managing dementia and what to expect with an elder who's been diagnosed with it:

Understanding the Dementia Experience, by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller 
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210580

Jennifer is a nurse who worked for many years as an educator and counsellor for people with dementia and their families, as well as others in caring roles. She addresses the emotional and grief issues in the contexts in which they arise for families living with dementia.

The full copy of her book is available here:
https://www.amazon.com/Thoughtful-Dementia-Care-Understanding-Experience/dp/B09WN439CC/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2E7WWE9X5UFXR&keywords=jennifer+ghent+fuller+books&qid=1657468364&sprefix=jennifer+ghent%2Caps%2C631&sr=8-2

She also has published a workbook entitled, “It Isn’t Common Sense: Interacting with People Who Have Memory Loss Due to Dementia.”
https://www.amazon.com/Isnt-Common-Sense-Interacting-Dementia/dp/1481995995/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2E7WWE9X5UFXR&keywords=jennifer+ghent+fuller+books&qid=1657468655&sprefix=jennifer+ghent%2Caps%2C631&sr=8-4

Wishing you the best of luck as you travel this road with your MIL. I know how difficult it is; my mother had vascular dementia for about 6 years before she passed in February, so I dealt with a whole lot of issues with her for a long time. Sending you a hug and a prayer for peace. You are very kind to be helping her out!

Dementia -she is probably taking off the diaper and peeing io the shirts. My mum bless her used to have accidents in her pants and swear it wasn’t her! It’s all so different in their mind. The only way to find out what’s happening is to put a secret camera in her room and film it. Dementia people are sneaky.

I agree that dementia patients can do very odd things that they consider reasonable. She may be using her clothes to catch her urine, to avoid having an accident and being embarrassed. At any rate, when she urinates on clothing, it’s best to soak them in warm water until you’re ready to wash them. For example, if it’s the middle of the night, I place them in a pan of warm water until morning to avoid the urine smell drying into the material. Next morning, I immediately wash them.

"...completely soaked in urine. Soaked like you put them under a water fountain."

My guess is that she was not wearing the shirts. If she was, they would only be wet on the back or sides if she was a side sleeper, and some parts of the front and top should still be dry, and the bedsheets would be wet.

How far along is her dementia? Dementia patients do strange things that they normally would not if they still had their minds.

You would have to catch your MIL in the act to know for sure how she got her shirts completely soaked.

If I had to guess, I would say she either used the shirts to catch her urine like Countrymouse suggested, or she put her shirts on the floor and peed into them, or she peed on the floor and mopped it up with her shirts, or she put the shirts into the toilet bowl full of urine, or... whatever creative ways her demented mind told her to do.

Does she have help putting on diapers? For over night, she should have at least one thick pad added to the diaper to soak up the extra urine. For my mother, I had to use 2 pads and sometimes her pants still got wet.

Good luck finding out the mystery and solving it.

If it's two of several shirts over the course of, say, ten days, my guess would be she got caught short while undressing and grabbed the nearest thing to catch the wee.

And how could she possibly admit to that, poor lamb?

But it would explain how the bed and the carpet (and presumably her pants and socks) stayed dry.

If you know when she is heading off to bed, or to get changed for bed, gently prompt her to go to the bathroom first. Say something true and reassuring about it, such as "I'd go to the bathroom first, before you get undressed, and then it won't be so chilly."

kacitft:

Good to hear that you are attentive enough to know it is urine.

Aside from looking into the matter more by using some of the advice from others replying to this thread, please ensure that you are using a laundry sanitizer such as Lysol to kill the germs/bacteria that are released in urine and fecal matter. I have come to learn that many caregivers only use detergent when doing laundry, and have not considered that the various accidents of our loved ones need to be sanitized in their clothes.

Best wishes on this journey.

Either the brief is not on correctly, she needs to be changed more frequently or she needs a brief more suited to her needs. They have extra absorbency briefs.

Does she tuck her shirts into her diapers?