I've been taking care of my step-grandmother for 2 and a half years now. She has dementia, Alzheimer's, and cancer, as well as arthritis, making her unable to walk by herself or even stand up. For now, me and my family were taking care and distributing chores with her (Feeding, cleaning/bathing, changing diapers, medicaments, etc) but I want to offer my parents the possibility of taking care of her all by myself and getting paid for it instead of leaving her at a residential care facilities, which is what they're planning.
The only problem I have is changing diapers. We need 2 people for that and we change her between 3 and 4 times a day. I'm always the one lifting her up and then someone does the changing and cleaning. Does anyone have experience doing this by himself? You could almost consider her as dead weight (She doesn't support her own weight). Is there a mechanism of something like that to do it? The only help I would need is to drop her pants and take out the diaper, and then put the diaper and pull up her pants. Any ideas? Sorry for my English
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You can do as you like, people the world over manage to care for people at home without help. It certainly won't be easy, but nobody here can stop you from trying.
Here is a video that might help. Roll. Do not lift. You may have to give up on pants or try to source Velcro closures, which can be stiff and uncomfortable.
https://www.angelic.health/educational-videos/diapering-an-adult.html
Can you get medical and disability insurance on yourself to cover injuries “on the job”? If you read enough here, you’ll see back and shoulder injuries are too common.
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What in the world makes you think that you and you alone could handle such a task? You can't. And just FYI, your step-grandmother should be changed more than 3 to 4 times a day. Even in nursing facilities folks are(supposed to anyway)to be changed every 2 hours to prevent them from getting any irritation on their skin and private parts or infections, so you are shy about 8 changes.
While your intention may be good, it's really not realistic. Let your parents have her placed where she will receive the 24/7 care she needs, and you can just go visit when you can.
While I really understand what you're saying, my reality differs a lot.
There were times when I took care of her completely alone and it was fine besides the part of changing diapers. She doesn't depend only on diapers, we change her 3 times a day because we take her to the bathroom to relieve herself, not because we leave her sitting in the "dirt". She is bathed regularly and eats very delicious things that my mom and I cook, it is a blessing to take care of her because of how happy she is, thank God her dementia was not accompanied by violence. I know that everything should have been better but it was impossible. I'm not from the USA, I'm not from Europe, I'm from a third-world country with a terrible quality of life. And not only that, but I live in a very small town where there are only two nursing homes of which one looked like a haunted house from which we received no response, and the other (Our current choice) is only two people taking care of EIGHT. Believe me when I say that I could take much better care myself by dedicating my 24/7 to her. I just asked if someone had a similar experience because is this option or something worse, there's no other choice.
Perhaps you can get a job as a caregiver in her residential care facility where you'll get to care for her to some degree and get paid, but not be in over your head 24/7. Just a thought.
Your parents made a decision because they can't do it anymore. Honor and respect that instead of instigating trouble by saying you want to do it all and get paid for it.
You can't because grandma is deadweight which means you risk serious injury trying to do it.
If you really want to do it all to save grandma from the nursing home. Do it for 7 days with NO help from any one else. Then imagine doing this day in and day out for god knows how long.
My advice support your parents decision. It was obviously not decided lightly and you should respect that.
If the whole family has needed to pitch in, than its going to be hard for one person. One person cannot care for someone like ur grandma 24/7.
The bigger issue might be that your parents are burned out with all of this beyond the diapers. They may simply wish their home be free of the dementia behaviors, the waste smells and so forth. You’re only one person, and paid or not, only one person can’t do the work of a whole facility.