My 86-year-old MIL lives with us and she refuses to wear depends. We're constantly having the carpet cleaned and there is fecal matter in the washer! What can we do?

If it were MY Mother, she would be given an ultimatum.....either she wears some kind of incontinence briefs or she goes to assisted living. It is a major HEALTH issue for your entire family to have urine and feces laying around. If she is concerned about "embarrassment," tell her it is far more embarrassing to have her urine & feces falling out than it would be to discreetly wear a Depends or similar product. Nobody has to know that she wears Depends......but everyone SURELY knows that she is being incontinent all over the house. She is not thinking of your family at all....she is being selfish.

Many people are in facilities primarily or even exclusively because of incontinence, and that's sad but sometimes just an inescapable reality. But first, make sure there is nothing that can be done medically. Way too many people are too embarrassed to bring it up with the doctor. If there is nothing fixable going on, then possibly a timed toileting/bowel program can work to decrease accidents. This involves toilet sitting after a meal or at some relatively predictable time when a bowel movement is likely, perhaps helped along by a suppository or other medicaitons. This is a lot of work and effort at least initiallly, and a lot of people just prefer usign incontinence products. TALK about it with a doctor or nurse.

Also, remember that people typically do not smell their own odors as pungently as that of others, and that plus even subtle cognitive/judgement limitations may be preventing your mom from realizing what the severity of the problem and how intolerable the status quo really is. YOU know, though, that you can't let someone continue to poop all over the house. There are some enzyme-based products such as Nature's Miracle designed for pets that will at least partially remove stains and odors, but they can only go so far. If you had one accident a week, you could probably keep everything clean and odor free, but not if it is a daily occurrence. Explaining that to mom gently and supportively may be a huge challenge depending on her judgement and thinking skills, but getting rid of the regular underwear and maybe using a pull-up style rather than a diaper-style could work out. Maybe you can even call it someth9ing else - my mom wears "briefs" and for soem kids who are embarrassed in the hospital they are "hospital pants." YMMV...I hope there is a decent solution for you and your mom.

I have known a few exceptional men during my life time, who took care of their wives. One was my uncle (by marriage) who took care of my dad's sister for almost 30 years after she was paralyzed in a car accident. He died from colon cancer 7 years before she died. Their youngest son has been caregiver who also cared for this mother now has cared for to his wife for several years. Right now they are facing her death from cancer that has spread to the brain and lungs. Another man I know, took care of his wive for over 20 years after she had a stroke. She died a couple years ago. I also had a cousin who helped me take care of my mom who was bed bound and dying of cancer as well as my elderly father and guess what? He was also dying of Non-Hodgkin's, too. He was not yet 30 when he died. All of these men are wonderful examples to other men and does prove to us that men are capable of being good caregivers. The only problem I have with giving them praise is that it can set them on a higher plane than women just because they are men since it is exceptional and women are expected to be like this. It is as if when men rise to taking care of someone, it is something more special. That is just not fair to all of the women who get no recognition.


I used to be an EMT-Paramedic and I can tell you that children are the most difficult calls to make even for the best of us. If it is your own child, it can be even harder. And though most of us rise to the occasion when it is our own child (I did when my daughter had a febrile seizure or when I had to work with my mom until paramedics responded for chest pain - I was cool, calm and collected), some do freeze. That is why doctors are taught not to treat their own family members. It does not mean they are a wuss by any means.

One last story, I knew a man on the rescue squad who was one of the best at using the jaws-of-life in the region. He was called to a wreck where he had to cut out several patients - one being his own sister who died on the scene. He completed his job for all of the patients and walked away. Can you imagine what it took for him to do this?

As someone who uses cloth diapers for a little one, there should not be a problem with "fecal matter" building up in the wash machine. With our washing machines today and the neat cloth diapers invented by stay-at-home-moms, cloth diapering today is not what it was years ago (and breastfed babies poop is easier wash out than formula fed babies.) With that said, here are some suggestions based on my experience of cloth diapering and taking care of my elderly terminally ill mom.

Make sure you put as much solids in the toilet as possible before laundering. Even the more liquid or softer solids should wash out and be carried with the waste water to be appropriately processed by the water treatment plant. (As far as disposable diapers... you are still supposed to put solids in the toilet before putting the diapers into the garbage.)

Soak the clothes in the wash machine for a couple of hours or so in a solution of laundry detergent, baking soda, and a few drops of tea tree oil in cold water and vinegar in the place of fabric softener. Complete this wash, then do a second wash as directed on the clothing label preferably warm. If you are still concerned after the wash is drying, then wash the laundry tub with bleach (no clothes).

Good luck.

This is a tough one to give any advice on with out knowing the family or how they have all gotten along before the "accidents". Okay, so hubby made a promise, in good faith that he'd never put mom in an ALF- a good promise but unrealistic. That's like saying that no matter what your children do they will always live with you- so even if they steal, rob, do drugs, become abusive...they will always have a room? I didn't think so. Same with mom- when the promise was made, Dad didn't realize that mom would have this problem....do you think if she did Dad would think it's ok? If the answer is yes, then you need to sit down and negotiate (or renegotiate) with your husband. Take out the "fair" part and state the facts: Mom and her "accidents" have become an emotional and financial burden for the entire family. This is something that neither you or I could have foreseen and as a family we need to approach this together. I know that you made a promise to your Dad and I love that you want to keep this promise however you also made a promise to me when we got married. Now that we have children we need to put their health and emotional well being ahead of our needs or wants. I'd like us to come up with a solution. I love your mother but not her accidents. Some solutions would be to install a new washer and dryer for us and the kids and mom will have her own. Pull up the carpets and lay down a vinyl or easy to clean floor. Have the chairs mom uses covered with chalks etc. Above all, work with your husband to find solutions. He may feel that since your mom is there too his mom should be too! When my mom went through this phase was I grounded her. She loved TV and I took the TV out of her room and told her that until she put her diapers on (I too removed her underwear and put depends in the drawer) no moreTV. She stayed in her room for most the day and eventually came out wearing diapers because she got bored. Let mom know that you understand how embarrassed she is to have accidents and that now with wearing her "new undies" she won't have that problem anymore. I'd also check with her doc because some medications could add to her problem. Hope this helps.

Many people have these well-intentioned starry-eyed notions that their elderly parent "will never be placed in a nursing home." But they do not understand that when a parent with dementia develops uncontrolled incontinence, becomes a danger to themselves or others, turns violent, etc., that they CANNOT remain in the home any longer for everyone's sake. It reminds me of an acquaintance who made the same "promise" to which I responded....."don't worry, you WILL end up putting her in a home when she becomes incontinent or starts doing socially inappropriate things." Sure enough, within a year or two the inevitable happened when she suddenly could not remember how to dress herself....

None of us like to think that our parent will end up like this, but it happens more and more often as people are living much longer than mother nature had intended. I actually loved Nataly1's technique of "grounding her." With the role reversal that happens with aging, we sometimes have to treat our parent in a similar fashion to how we would treat a family member who is a young child - because that's what actually works.

I should mention that if it were MY husband who had made the "deathbed promise," I would put my foot down and tell him that HE can clean up her feces and her urine - and I would stop cleaning up after her. Once the odor of feces and urine began to permeate the house as well as obvious "puddles" of excrement/urine visible on floors or furniture, I suspect that husband would be much more willing to consider AL or a NH for her. He may not even realize the scope of the problem, because, after all, his wife is running around cleaning up the mess!

This actually raises another important issue. Why is it that women are the ones STUCK with excrement/urine duties, even if it's the husband's parent and not ours? Why do we allow ourselves to be coerced into performing this service? We should put our collective feet down and tell the men that "it's your parent, not mine, and you are responsible for their care, not me" - and then stick to our guns. While I am sure there are exceptions, I have yet to know of any man who has agreed to be the one to diaper & clean up his elderly parent - yet many of them will diaper their infant children without reservation.

What do the rest of you think about this issue?

There is definitely an unfair double standard at play......and we women are guilty of allowing it to be imposed upon us.

Hi, Jsomebody: In addition to being the "family glue," women are generally in charge of their family's health matters - from keeping vaccination records to scheduling medical appointments. I rarely see a man in a physician's office who has brought his infant child ALONE for a check-up, but I see plenty of women who are there alone with a sick child.

Bottom line, really, is that overall women are MUCH stronger emotionally than men - I've seen it time and time again. Men are wimps, in general, when it comes to matters of illness. They are complete babies when they are sick and they cannot deal with the sickness of others. Women just pitch in and clean up the vomit, end of discussion. Even some male physicians are completely grossed out if a patient vomits or poops all over the place.....and they call the nearest FEMALE CNA to clean it up.

When I was a very little child, I used to actually clean up my OWN vomit or feces (per my parent's report) whereas my older brother would just puke and lie in it, expecting somebody else to clean up after him. I really think we come out of the womb differently, acculturation notwithstanding.

I "read the riot act" once to an EMT CPR instructor who told me that when his 4-year-old fell and broke his arm, he "freaked" and was incapable of providing first aid to the child because he was "too upset." This guy is an EMT trainer, mind you. It was his non-medical WIFE who took the bull by the horns and did the proper first aid and ran the kid to the hospital ER. I told the guy he was a "poor excuse for an EMT if he could not even render basic first aid to his own child for something as simple as a broken arm." The man was obviously a complete WUSS!

Times have changed, these situations are what Nursing Homes and Assisted Care Centers are for. You have enough to do without this huge stress on you and your family. Even without the problem of her urinating all over your house, she shouldn't be living with you. Elderly people are way too much care and it's way to hard on the family especially if you have kids. I couldn't do it. No way. It's just not expected of you. You should never be made to feel guilty either. If my son doesn't put me in assisted living or a nursing home at about age 70, I'll have his head! He know's that there is no way he is to take care of his parents. He can come visit and bring me cookies once in a while, but that's it. He won't be changing my poo poo pads that's for sure!

(1) Next time she poops or pees all over the place, LEAVE IT THERE, show it to your husband and tell hiim that HE can clean up the mess if he refuses to allow her to go into a "home." I bet if he had to clean up the poop himself, he'd change his tune. After all it's HIS mother - not yours! As long as you keep enabling him by cleaning up after HIS mother, the situation will never change.

(2) in the meantime, get rid of all of her underpants, replace ALL of her underwear with Depends and refer to them as "briefs." This is what she will have to wear - end of story.