How Can You Work through Your Own Reactions about Your Aging Adult’s Incontinence?

Incontinence can bring up a lot of emotions, both for you and for your aging adult. Your emotions, in particular, can really influence how you react and respond to your aging adult’s issues on a daily basis. Finding a way to manage how you’re feeling when you deal with your elderly family member’s incontinence in a less reactive way can help your aging adult more than you realize.

Homecare in Amagansett NY: Caregiver Incontinence Reactions

What You’re Feeling and How You Respond

When your elderly family member has an accident or needs help, you might feel uncomfortable, impatient, or even embarrassed. In some situations, you might already be frustrated or angry because several situations pile on you at once. What this can do is to make you short with your aging adult when you try to help her.

Why That Doesn’t Work

What this means for you and for your elderly family member is that your reaction prompts one from her. She might become embarrassed when she wasn’t already or she might start to try to hide accidents from you. All of this is detrimental to your aging adult’s mental, emotional, and physical health. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Talk through Your Issues

One of the best ways to manage your reactions is to start to talk through them. When you’re keeping the emotions bottled up, you’re not really processing them. Find some people you can work through these issues with, such as your elderly family member’s doctor or a counselor you feel comfortable talking to about this.

Bring in Elder Care Providers to Help

While you’re working on your own reactions, you might want to try bringing in eldercare providers who have experience in managing incontinence issues. That way you can take a step back and you still have help for your aging adult. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to work through what you’re feeling and how you’re reacting, but it can give you the space that you need to form a better skill set for dealing with your elderly family member’s incontinence.

Remember to take a deep breath and remember what you want your elderly family member’s experience to be before you react.

If you or an aging loved one is considering hiring homecare in Amagansett, NY, call the caring staff at Artful Home Care today at 631-685-5001.