How To Help Your Family Member Deal With Incontinence? Follow These Guidelines

Urinary incontinence is pretty common, particularly among older folks, although even younger people can suffer from it. Fortunately, this condition is not life-threatening, however, it can seriously impact various aspects of someone’s life.

And it’s hard watching someone you love feel embarrassed over something they cannot control. But how can we define urinary incontinence? It can be defined as the loss of bladder control.

Approximately, up to forty-five percent of people experience it at some point in their lives. Luckily, there are many things that you can do to alleviate the symptoms, and below we’ll mention some.

Helpful Ways To Manage Urinary Incontinence

Start With Incontinence Pads

Those who are struggling with this will tell you that bladder leaks practically always come “uninvited”, at inconvenient moments. Luckily, today you can rely on adult incontinence pads to give you some support each time a bladder leak occurs. The market is loaded with products that can help you out with this, starting with disposable underpads, to adult wipes, etc. What are the main benefits of these pads?

First and foremost, your burden is going to become much lighter, because you will no longer have to bring various stuff, so-called “emergency gear” just in case this inconvenience happens.

Another positive thing about them is that they are extremely comfortable to wear, which means that you can go to both formal and informal events, wear whatever your heart desires, and enjoy every single moment.

Consider Pelvic Floor Workouts 

The pelvic floor represents numerous muscles that support both your bowel and bladder. Once it weakens, you’ll be dealing with a urine leakage when laughing, sneezing, or coughing, and you’ll go to the bathroom frequently.

One of the best ways to strengthen your muscles is to start doing pelvic floor exercises, which are also known as Kegel exercises. Their goal is to enhance bladder control, support your organs and prevent urine leakage.

A study that was conducted a few years ago has shown that people who have practiced pelvic floor workouts were 2.5 to 17 times more likely to fully recover from this condition. 

What Else Can Be Done?

Decrease Fluid Intake

Keep in mind, that the more liquid you have the fuller your bladder will be and this refers to every single drink, even water. It would be best if you could completely stop drinking (or at least limit) alcohol and beverages that contain caffeine because these drinks will make you produce lots of urine.

And then you will go to the toilet all the time. That’s why it would be advisable to have somewhere between six to eight glasses of liquids each day and be sure to decrease liquid intake after 16h. 

Have A Toileting Schedule

You should plan toileting attempts approximately every two to three hours throughout the day. Normal bladder behavior is to go to the bathroom six to eight times a day, along with emptying the bladder before you go to sleep, leave the house, and many other things. 

Developing a schedule is of huge importance because it prevents the bladder from becoming full, which leads to having an urge to instantly go to the restroom. 

Have A Bladder Diary

Even though this may sound like weird advice, you should suggest something like this to your loved one who is having these issues. Remind them that keeping track of their bathroom habits by having a diary is going to uncover numerous triggers and patterns that are going to help their physician find the cause of their urinary incontinence. 

So how can this be executed? Several days before they go to their healthcare provider, they should start writing down everything.  What they’ve drunk at a particular time, what time, how many times they’ve gone to the bathroom, and when they’ve experienced leaking-urine accidents. 

Tell them that they are supposed to mention everything that has occurred that led to these episodes, like exercising, coughing, a sense of urgency, etc. All this information must be written down in their diary.

If Necessary, Lose Weight

If you want to reduce the risk of leaking urine, then it would be recommendable to lose some weight. Being overweight, particularly around the middle puts a lot of pressure and stress on the pelvic floor muscle. This then causes these inconvenient urine leaks. 

One study has shown that women who have lost seventeen pounds in six months have lowered their leaking episodes by almost fifty percent.

Even though this condition can truly make you feel uncomfortable, the truth is, no one should ever feel embarrassed about it, however, if you want to help a family member lead a normal life, then suggest to them some of these solutions.