My grandmother keeps peeing herself and trying to hide it when she comes over for visits. Once she had an accident and I had to really harass her to go have a shower, when she finally did I heard her turn on the water for the tub and turn it off after a few seconds. She came out and said she had had a shower. I tried to talk to my grandfather about it and he has said she is just being lazy...I don't agree...she was never like this before she had so much pride in herself. He has made her feel embarassed about it so she came over a few times and made it pretty obvious she was placing her coat under herself before she sat down. I don't want her to start to hate me but it hard with a new baby and having to clean up after her...messes. With that said she raised me and cleaned up my mess when I was a child so I know I owe her. But her peeing herself or doing other things in her pants and then wearing it the whole visit refusing to change is sad and not at all like her. I don't know what to do to help her. Talking to her always feels awkward, I feel mean...what should I do? Am I complaining too much? Is this normal when people get older or is this something more serious?
You might also do a little observation duty to find out if she is just waiting too long in between bathroom trips. Pain with walking can make someone delay the trips for obvious reasons. The longer you wait, when you finally rise, out it comes. Even though there is pain, the longer you can keep someone walking and using their muscles, the better off you're going to be.
I would discourage using diapers because, in my opinion, exacerbates the lack of control issue. Ex: If I put a diaper on you, your brain would still tell you it is not ok to go to the bathroom in your pants. However, if you had a bad day and couldn't get up and relaxed your bladder and your brain to say it's ok to do it, it will not take long before your brain thinks it is a natural/normal way to use the restroom. It is very hard to reverse this once you start it. It's a pee problem right now, but would become a BM problem later on.