Incontinence is an incredibly common issue, whether it’s mild or more severe. Your senior may be dealing with this as a brand-new issue, though, and incontinence can be incredibly disconcerting. Something that can surprise both of you could be how strongly this issue can affect your senior emotionally.
Let Her Handle Things
Your senior is still capable of handling more than either of you might think. If you try to take over too much for her, that can be infantilizing and can do more harm than good. What you want to do is to help her, but what really happens is that she ends up feeling worse about herself and about this situation. Let her ask for help when she truly needs and wants it. That’s going to help both of you.
Take a Pause When Either of You Are Frustrated
You’re both going to feel frustrated about incontinence issues now and again. That’s honestly normal. Some days are going to be better than others are. But what can help the most, especially when your frustration levels are highest, is to just remember to take a bit of a pause. Count to five or find another way to just pause in the moment. It’s okay and it will help you to regain a bit of your footing.
Avoid Defeatist Language
For you and your senior, this situation can become so frustrating that you might feel as if this is just the worst thing in the world ever. It isn’t, truly. It feels like it sometimes, but if you keep hanging onto that defeatist attitude, you’re going to help make it truer. Keep your thoughts and your language as positive as you can, even on bad days. This isn’t the worst thing ever that your senior could be dealing with, so it’s not good to get really negative about it.
Keep Your Sense of Humor
What’s really important is that you and your senior do what you can to keep your sense of humor about what she’s dealing with. You never want to laugh at your senior, of course, but if you can laugh together, that can do a lot more than you think to help both of you to cope. Find little ways to embrace humor about incontinence, even if it feels a little odd to be doing so at first.
Dealing with incontinence can be trying for you and for your senior. Elderly care providers can help you both to learn techniques and tips that help make this a lot less difficult.