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My father has early stage of dementia and he pees on the floor in the mornings,should I hold him responsible and have him clean it up. he swears he didn't do it,and is argumentive, I don't have a problem cleaning it up but my husband said he is more than capable to do it himself. he is independent as far as dressing and cleaning himself,physcally he is fine, just the memory problem.what you guess think

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For starters, I wouldn't argue about whether he did or did not pee on the floor. That is the kind of argument you are not going to win with someone with dementia. But you could simply assign him the task of cleaning the floor in that room every morning. While you are at it you could assign a few more chores that he is capable of doing. Maybe his jobs are cleaning the floor in that room every morning, folding towels when the laundry is done, and sweeping the kitchen after dinner each night. None of this is a punishment or because he did something wrong. It is just his contribution to running the household.

Do you know why he pees on the floor? Does he have an urgent need to go in the morning and he can't wait? Would a bedside commode solve that problem? Then it could be his job to empty the commode pot.
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OF course you shouldnt make him clean it, your husband doesnt understand dementia at all. When your Dad says he didnt do it, he means it, he doesnt remember. My Mom used to get up, pull down her underwear or diaper, and squat and pee all over the floor. I went in and she was back in bed, I almost fell in it the first time it happened. I cleaned it up and sometimes she would say "what are you doing?" and I said "just washing your floor mom" and she would say "oh hunny you dont have to do that, its fine, etc" she hadnt a clue she did it and I wasnt about to embarrass her. She wouldnt have believed it anyway, they lose the closest memories first. I had to buy unstrippable pajamas to finally stop it. Please have some sympathy for him, and Dont make the poor guy clean it up, he has a long hard road ahead of him as it is.
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a bedside commode would be a great idea, My mom has one, she does have incontince problems at times, you have to remember, it is the disease so don't argure or punish them like a child, if he can clean it up then I would ask him to, in my moms case she is unable to do much of anything as she has multiple diseases so I take care of everything, Patience and love is the best thing you can do for him and if you need a break, get a caregiver to come in a couple of hours a week to give you a break, will keep you in my prayers
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I agree with the other posters. It is pointless to argue or rationalize with someone with dementia. Just accept it. This should not be a punitive issue. First of all, make sure your dad doesn't have a physical problem causing him to lose bladder control before he reaches the bathroom. Perhaps he needs some adult pull-ups at night, a bed side commode (although change is hard to adopt for someone with dementia), or some other strategy like less liquid in the evening. Whatever the case, he can't be held responsible for peeing on the floor. Also, if he does clean it up as part of his daily contribution or chores, he needs supervision and also, someone needs to make sure he thoroughly washes his hands after. My mom hates to wash her hands, but she loves to wash dishes - so when I want her to wash her hands, I ask her to wash something for me - with soap!
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Even if your father knows he did it at the moment, he very well might not remember later. And with all us humans, we have a hard time accepting we've done stuff but don't recall it. That would go double for an embarrassing situation. Early in my father's dementia, he'd get distracted in the bathroom and miss for part of it, drenching the floor. He'd then come out and tell me that there was a problem but swear it wasn't him. He meant it.

It's just my personal predilection, but I wouldn't ask him to clean it up. It's hard for old folks to get down there, rather demeaning and it feels like punishment if they don't recall doing it, even if you didn't mean it that way. I'd just look for another way around it.

Get him to a urologist to determine if there's a problem that can be fixed. If not, invest heavily in Depends. Because things probably aren't going to get better along those lines.
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I ran across some information the other day that may help you put your Dad's situation in perspective. When a person is struggling with dementia it is because their brain is damaged. This damge effects different parts of the body including an individuals ability to control urine as well as making decisions. Such as getting up timely to make it to the toilet in time. So with that in mind I would say to you that your father is not peeing on the floor to make you upset, he simply no longer has the ability to make adjustments in his behavior to prevent this from happening. If your dad was able to make decisions with a brain that is not damaged I'm confident that he would not decide to pee on the floor. so making him clean up after himself is not going to resolve the problem. Dementia causes brain damage that can not be repaired with a pill or behavior modifying corrective action. A bedside commode is a good solution and another idea is to work with your dad to remind him to use the toilet every few hours. I would also question if he may have a urinary tract infection which could cause this issue,
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My MIL had the same problem - she would get up too fast and not have finished and almost every time she went in the bathroom, this happened. After she left, I would just clean the entire area and just anticipated that this would be par for the course from now on.

I don't think they should have to clean this as most of the time they don't know and usually are in denial. And as said above, she would forget to wash her hands - so all in all it was just easier for me to do it. It is not easy.
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My mother didn't have dementia but did have bowel problems occasionally. While it was not pleasant, my kids and I just rolled up the sleeves and had at it. She wasn't well when this happened and felt embarrassed so we just took care of it. She still had some self pride and tried to clean up the pee accidents. Lordie, I hate the thought I might be experiencing this one day. Hope my kids remember their grandma experiences!
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Unstrippable pajamas are like pajama pants and top sewed together with a zipper up the back. They have all kinds of clothing also. I got moms first pair at a place on line called buck and buck. Then I made some. I also used suspenders on her pajama bottoms and put a top over the suspenders. By the time she figured out she couldnt get them off, she peed in her diaper and went back to bed, worked like a charm. Good luck
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Whats unstrippable pajamas
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